I've been programming since elementary school; starting in DOS programming in BASIC. As I transitioned through Windows 3.1 into Windows 9x, I upgraded to Visual Basic; where I stayed for many years. In Visual Basic I first learned how to interact with the then undocumented Windows APIs and raw Network I/O. I even managed to work it into my school life; including a fun school project using the SAPI 5.1 to make a simple voice commands server which could trigger various actions.