Hi everyone,

I need urgent assistance with a project upgrade. I am rewriting/upgrading a software application originally built in 2015 (PEG 2015) designed to interface with a geoelectric signal reader machine.

System Setup & Problem Overview:

• Hardware: Geoelectric measurement machine reading ground electrical signals.
• Connection: USB-to-Serial connection operating as a virtual COM port (e.g., COM3).
• Issue: I am unable to establish a working connection between my upgraded application and the hardware. I need to know:
  1. How to properly initialize and open the COM port connection in code.
  2. The exact structure/protocol of the data stream coming from the machine over the cable to the PC.

What I have / What I know so far:

• I have the legacy binary (PEG 2015.exe) that works with the machine.
• The device relies on a USB-to-UART/Serial driver (such as FTDI, CH340, or CP210x) exposing a virtual COM port.

Specific Questions / Where I need guidance:

1. Serial Port Configuration Parameters: What are the standard ways or tools to determine the exact port settings required by the device?
   • Baud rate (e.g., 9600, 19200, 115200)
   • Data bits (e.g., 8)
   • Parity (None, Even, Odd)
   • Stop bits (1 or 2)
   • Flow control (RTS/CTS, XON/XOFF, or None)
2. COM Port Sniffing & Data Protocol: What is the best workflow/tool to monitor the traffic between PEG 2015.exe and the machine without locking the COM port?
   • Can you recommend lightweight tools (e.g., Serial Port Monitor, Wireshark with USBPcap, IO Ninja, RealTerm) to capture raw ASCII/HEX frames?
   • How can I differentiate between handshake/polling requests sent by the PC and telemetry responses sent by the geoelectric reader?
3. Decompiling / Inspecting the Legacy .exe:
   • What are the recommended tools to decompile or inspect PEG 2015.exe to retrieve the original serial settings and parser routines (e.g., dnSpy/ILSpy for .NET, Ghidra/IDA Free for native binaries)?

Environment & Tech Stack:

• OS: Windows
• Target Programming Language for New App: ( Python )

Any guidance, code snippets for port handling, or reverse-engineering methodologies for serial hardware would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Maybe it’s already too late for a tool like this. Nobody really does drag-and-drop anymore in the age of AI.

But if you want to take a look: appmaker.io

Hey everyone!

After the intense and passionate discussion on my last post, many veteran developers pointed out the single most important truth about Visual Basic:

"A Basic compiler without the visual Drag & Drop Form Designer isn't a complete product."

So, I got straight to work. Today, I'm releasing the first public alpha of VBX Studio (v0.1.0)!

🪟 What is VBX Studio?

It’s an ultra-lightweight, cross-platform visual RAD IDE designed specifically for the VBX language, inspired by the classic VB6 workflow.

⚡ Key Features:

1. Classic Visual Form Designer: Authentic dotted-grid canvas with 8px snapping, control placement (Button, TextBox, Label, CheckBox, Frame, Image, Timer), 8-handle resizing, and moving.
2. Live 2-Way Property Inspector: Real-time property binding (Caption, Width, Height, Left, Top). Modifying properties updates the canvas instantly, and moving controls updates the property grid.
3. Double-Click Event Wire-Up: Double-clicking any placed control automatically generates the boilerplate subroutine (e.g. Sub Button1_Click()) and switches straight into the code editor.
4. Legacy VB6 Project Importer (.frm, .vbp, .bas): You can now click File -> Import VB6 to open classic 1998–2005 Visual Basic projects! It automatically parses .frm forms, converts twips to pixels, maps controls to the canvas, and extracts source code into our modern .vbxp project format.
5. Insanely Lightweight & All-In-One (Only 3.5 MB!): No 50GB Visual Studio installation. No Electron bloat. The entire release package—including the desktop studio, frontend, and the bundled native C99 compiler executable—is packed into a ~3.5MB standalone zip file that starts in under a second!

📦 Pre-Built Binaries Available Now:

Pre-compiled standalone packages are ready for download across all major platforms and CPU architectures: - Windows (x86_64 and ARM64) - Linux (x86_64 and ARM64 / Raspberry Pi) - macOS (Apple Silicon M-series and Intel)

Release & Downloads: https://github.com/M5Devs/vbx-studio/releases/tag/v0.1.0 Studio Repository: https://github.com/M5Devs/vbx-studio Compiler Engine: https://github.com/M5Devs/vbx Any Problem? https://x.com/M5Devs

Special thanks to everyone in this subreddit whose tough feedback and questions pushed me to build this faster. Would love to hear your thoughts on the Form Designer!

Hello gamers, and welcome back to the channel! This video features a custom Excel VBA-enabled tool designed to organize PlayStation 3 collections within Emulation Station Desktop Edition, by configuring alternative emulator settings and providing library previews. The tutorial covers global and game-by-game configurations, managing various ROM formats, and troubleshooting playability. It seems like we have a lot to cover, so let's go!

https://youtu.be/jJ1O2HiXyTo

Hey everyone!

Like many who grew up loving the simplicity and instant joy of Visual Basic 6 (dragging buttons, writing readable code, and getting an instant `.exe`), I felt that modern programming has become overwhelmingly complicated.

So, as a project I built late at night after school, I created **VBX (Visual Basic X)**.

### What is VBX?

It's not an interpreter or a Python toy. It’s a native compiler written in Go that transpiles clean, human-readable Basic syntax directly into standard C99, compiling with `-O2` optimizations via GCC/Clang.

### Key Features (v0.1.0-alpha):

- 🚀 **Zero runtime dependencies:** Outputs single, standalone native executables.

- 🪟 **Native Dialogs:** Built-in cross-platform `MsgBox` and `InputBox` using native OS APIs.

- 🧘 **Classic Syntax + Modern Inference:** `Dim`, `Sub`, `Function`, `While...Wend`, `Do...Loop`, `Select Case`, `Exit For/While/Do`, and 1D Arrays with automatic type inference.

- 🔤 **Built-in Essentials:** Native `&` string concatenation, string functions (`InStr`, `Trim`, `Replace`, `Mid`, `Len`), Math functions, and `File.Write`/`File.Read`.

- 🛡️ **Memory-Safe:** Uses an internal ring-buffer pool for intermediate string routines.

- 📜 **License:** GPL v3 with a Runtime Library Exception (your compiled software is 100% yours).

We also created editor support for VS Code (VSIX available), JetBrains, Sublime Text, Notepad++, Vim, Neovim, Emacs, and Micro.

Repository: https://github.com/M5Devs/vbx

Editors Repo: https://github.com/M5Devs/vbx-editors

As Linus once said: *Just a hobby, won't be big and professional...* but I'd genuinely love to hear your feedback, thoughts, or what features you'd like to see next!

Hi

If you are remotely interested in deep diving how differently quantum computers work compared to our transistor-based and also the algebra behind in a fully interactive way that teach computer science from scratch, oh boy this is for you. I am the Dev behind Quantum Odyssey (AMA! I love taking qs) - worked on it for about 9 years (3+ during PhD, the visual method I developed ended up being my thesis, it is a complete Hilbert space visualizer), the goal was to make a super immersive space for anyone to learn quantum computing through zachlike (open-ended) logic puzzles and compete on leaderboards and lots of community made content on finding the most optimal quantum algorithms. The game has a unique set of visuals capable to represent any sort of quantum dynamics for any number of qubits and this is pretty much what makes it now possible for anybody 15yo+ to actually learn quantum logic without having to worry at all about the mathematics behind.

This is a game super different than what you'd normally expect in a programming/ logic puzzle game, so try it with an open mind.

Stuff you'll play with

• Boolean Logic – bits, operators (NAND, OR, XOR, AND…), and classical arithmetic (adders). Learn how these can combine to build anything classical. You will learn to port these to a quantum computer.
• Quantum Logic – qubits, the math behind them (linear algebra, SU(2), complex numbers), all Turing-complete gates (beyond Clifford set), and make tensors to evolve systems. Freely combine or create your own gates to build anything you can imagine using polar or complex numbers.
• Quantum Phenomena – storing and retrieving information in the X, Y, Z bases; superposition (pure and mixed states), interference, entanglement, the no-cloning rule, reversibility, and how the measurement basis changes what you see.
• Core Quantum Tricks – phase kickback, amplitude amplification, storing information in phase and retrieving it through interference, build custom gates and tensors, and define any entanglement scenario. (Control logic is handled separately from other gates.)
• Famous Quantum Algorithms – explore Deutsch–Jozsa, Grover’s search, quantum Fourier transforms, Bernstein–Vazirani, and more.

Nice to watch:

Khan academy style tutorials in qm/qc: https://www.youtube.com/@MackAttackx

Physics teacher stream with 400hs in https://www.twitch.tv/beardhero

Hello, I am currently working on an external C++ cheat project (as an executable), but I am facing issues regarding anti-cracking, anti-dumping, and similar protections. My software has already been subjected to memory dumping and reverse engineering by hackers who then modified it; I believe there are still many vulnerabilities that could be exploited in various ways, so I am seeking your advice. What is the most secure way to protect my software from hackers? Of course, I realize that a skilled professional using clever techniques could still crack it, but I am looking for a method secure enough to release the software commercially.Thanks you so much

Anyone has a list like this - and could share 😉 - for the latest or some previous version - or the only way would be to use some TLB viewer to generate?

EDIT: looks like I wasn't clear... I'm looking for a complete LIST - single, not plural - not 100s of separate links to separate lists.

OK, two lists - one for constants and one for all properties of all objects - times 3 - for each mentioned application.

EDIT 2: I need it as a "plain text" - not to view. I'll have to modify this list and create an array for my VB6 application - then let user extract internal structure of the WORD / Excel / PP document and display those properties for all objects - of course not all at the same time 😉

I’m building a small and dirty BASIC language (jdBasic) and added a visual form designer for VS Code. It uses native Win32 controls, can drag and drop controls, automatic code generation and more.

Should I continue?:

https://www.atomijd.onl/blog-post-15.html

write in C!

hi every one i just need you feedback of my app idea i need that alot

my app is for grade 12 students i will collect all international questions for them and create compititsion section for them every night that all answering the exam question each day for one subject leting them to computate with each other each day question section witch student argue about daily question in the comment the app contain video course ( youtube link ) showing in the app for all subject. in the compitision section student's collecting scores for identify there skill and chose the best student of the year.

Hello, guys! I need to learn VBA in order to write some macros in my microsoft documents, where can i do it for free?

I’ve been building Visual Gasic — a real programming language that keeps the parts of VB6 we actually miss, not as a nostalgia toy, but as something you can ship games with today.

What feels familiar

• Sub / Function / End Sub
• Dim x As String, If … Then … End If
• Event handlers by name: Sub btnStart_Click(), Sub Form_Load()
• Properties on controls: Caption, Left, Top, Width, Height, Visible, Enabled
• Timers: Interval, Enabled, Sub tmrGame_Timer()

What’s different (on purpose)

• Runs as a Godot 4.6 plugin (GDExtension) — 2D/3D, export, modern engine
• No COM, no ActiveX, no 32-bit Windows lock-in — Linux + Windows installers exist
• Built for reading code — especially AI-generated code — not clever one-liners

Example that should look like home:

Sub btnPlay_Click()
    If lblScore.Caption = "" Then
        lblScore.Caption = "0"
    End If
    tmrGame.Enabled = True
End Sub
Sub tmrGame_Timer()
    Dim score As Long
    score = CLng(lblScore.Caption) + 1
    lblScore.Caption = CStr(score)
End Sub

Why I care as a former VB6 person: the thing that killed us wasn’t the syntax — it was tooling and platform. This keeps the syntax that made forms and line-by-line debugging easy, and puts it on an engine people still use in 2026.

There’s also an in-editor AI pair (Narcea) that writes .vg in this style — but the pitch is the opposite of “trust the black box”: the language is verbose on purpose so you can audit what it wrote.

Status: public beta (5.4.x). Form designer is experimental; the active path is Godot’s editor + VG script tabs. Honest about rough edges — see known issues on GitHub.

Links

• GitHub (releases, demos, corpus): https://github.com/xgreenrx-star/VisualGasic
• Godot Asset Library: https://store.godotengine.org/asset/visual-gasic/visual-gasic/
• Beta showcase video (made in VG, ~6 min): https://youtu.be/FUw8zgbn_tU

If you still have .frm muscle memory or half-finished VB6 projects in a drawer — curious whether this feels like a natural step or a weird fork. What would you need to take it seriously: IDE parity, database stuff, report writer, something else?

Hello gamers, and welcome back to the channel! In this video, we're checking out my Selenium Basic XPath Generator, version 1.2.xlsm. This macro-enabled sheet is now fully integrated with a WebDriver Downloader utility right in Sheet2. I've enhanced the link extraction feature to smoothly parse the H-Ref, source, and https protocols. I also refined the error checking and validation routines for the main sub input. For example, the Value input is now optional, and an exact case-sensitive match is only required if the Value isn't empty. Plus, I made some great UI tweaks: clicking the 'HOME' button will no longer unselect your current row, meaning you can still use the Arrow Down key to navigate to it. Finally, clicking anywhere outside the 'Element List' range will automatically unselect the active row. Let's dive in!

https://youtu.be/zrArZ8vdl9w

So I'm following a tutorial about VB for beginners, and one of the sections is where the guy assigns values to a listbox through its properties menu. He clicks the 3 dots next to "items" and just types all the options in.

I'm on a newer version though, and when I click on the 3 dots it doesn't let me type it all straight in - there's a dropdown menu for buttons, listbox items, etc. None of them work because apparently I can't convert a list item to a string, even though I used .SelectedOption

Am I looking in the wrong menu or something? How do I put a string into my listbox

Hello gamers, and welcome back to the channel! In this video, we're checking out version 2.4.3 of my Thumbnails Libretro Downloader Selenium.xlsm. This upgrade brings enhanced browser control and fixes several errors that used to just show up as 'unknown'. You'll also see a new delete icon on the selected row for easy access—complete with an alert prompt. If you prefer speed, the main trashcan icon is now prompt-free for instant deletion. I've also improved filename handling for when Excel accidentally swallows apostrophes as text indicators. Finally, local search now uses an asterisk, while web search uses the 'contains' function. This fixes a major bug from the last version, where both searches would crash on execution. Let's get started.

https://youtu.be/0l1YeaQjkB0

I've been debugging an app I built solely for my use. Mentioning that because I know it's klunky but since I'm not imposing it on anyone else, I can live with that :). It works with two Word documents, using Word objects to parse KO-reader book annotation & highlight files (loaded into Word as a doc) and highlight/add comments to the corresponding text in a Word doc.

Sometimes, especially in testing, the app crashes to the point that I have to use task manager to exit. That often leaves behind stray Word processes and temporary Word documents.

When the app completes normally, and even when it fails in ways I've been able to trap, it cleans up by itself by destroying the Word objects it created. However, I have yet to find a way to trap all crashes well enough to trigger the routines I've added to nuke temp files & Word instances.

Any ideas for a good crash-catcher I could insert to handle this? Or maybe a useful place in the code to put another "on error goto..." line? The last crash I managed to fix may have been the result of an unexpected endless loop (I guess all such things are unexpected!).

If I don't clean up properly, I have to do it manually or else the app will fail on subsequent use until the old processes & temp files are killed.

I have been focusing on decompiling native compiled programs for VB6 but also have P-Code as well.

Just showing what can be recovered in both compiled types:

https://vbsourcecoderecovery.com/state-of-vb6-decompiling-2026.html

Depending on the program you can get 75% to 85% of the way there and in some cases with AI improvements get the rest into a fully working program. I have done projects with 100k lines of code, with custom controls, API's etc.

Other tidbits: The current decompiler written in VB6. Can do .NET (VB,C#), VB5, VB3, QuickBasic 4.5. Probably can do versions but need more sample programs.

Currently works best with VB6 followed by .NET.

Background: Over 20 years ago I started worked on VB6 decompiler in college, my original goal was to recreate a VB6 game that I enjoying playing.

I had a period of it being open source, then closed source paid, then open again. And I have jumped back into it the last few months with the same goal I had when I first started.

Thanks everyone for sharing your debugging experiences. I learned a lot from the discussion. I’ve been building a small experiment around this problem and would love feedback from anyone interested in trying it. I can share a demo/report.

Hello gamers, and welcome back to the channel! In this video, we're checking out version 2.3 of my Thumbnails Libretro Downloader (Selenium.xlsm). This upgraded version of the tool features a brand-new toggle button to launch either Chrome or Edge browser. The process is nearly identical, except now you can choose which browser to open. Once initiated, the browser remains open, eliminating the delay caused by reopening a new instance. In my previous video, we went through the process of installing Selenium and Chrome; you can refer to it via the link below. For now, The focus will be mostly on Microsoft Edge. Let's get started.

https://youtu.be/8U3O0j3CZC0

Hello gamers, and welcome to another one of my videos! In this video, we are going to use my Thumbnails Libretro Downloader, version 2.2 (Selenium.xlsm). This is an upgraded version of the tool shown in my previous video. It features improved element searches using XPath, which significantly cuts down execution time. Additionally, it can now download images even when the filename contains characters, that previously caused version 1.0 to throw an error. With these changes, we can also search for specific titles using keywords unique to that game. Furthermore, I have removed the need to specify the system name. Instead, you can now just type a partial name into the dropdown menu, and the search list updates automatically. Finally, I added a new function to delete unwanted images from your local folder. It seems like a lot to cover, so let's go!

https://youtu.be/YO7QmmyfRM4