40 years of Turbo Pascal, the coding dinosaur that revolutionized IDEs
- Reference: 1701682210
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/12/04/40_years_of_turbo_pascal/
- Source link:
Turbo Pascal was released in 1983 and represented a shift from the traditional way programming tools worked in the early days of IBM PC compatibles. Rather than multiple compiler and linking passes that required time-consuming floppy disk access, Turbo Pascal did everything in RAM, making it considerably faster – hence the name "Turbo."
Anders Hejlsberg, who would later go on to join Microsoft as part of the C# project, is widely credited as creator of the language, with Borland boss Philippe Kahn identifying the need for the all-in-one tool.
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It was also cheap – where the competition could cost hundreds of dollars, Turbo Pascal retailed for $49.99. However, its maker, Borland, wanted a little extra if a customer planned to distribute the binaries.
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Version 1 had limitations. Source code files, for example, were limited to 64 KB. It would only produce .COM executable files for DOS and CP/M – although other architectures and operating systems were supported. It would also run from a single floppy disk, saving users from endless swapping in a world where single drives were the norm and a hard disk seemed impossibly exotic – and expensive.
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Version 2 came a few months later, with some minor modifications, and was followed by version 3 in 1986. However, it was with version 4, in 1987, that Turbo Pascal changed dramatically. For one, support for CP/M and CP/M-86 was dropped, and the compiler would generate .EXE executables under DOS, lifting the .COM restrictions.
Version 4 also introduced a full-screen text user interface with pull-down menus, and 1988's version 5 gave us the familiar default blue background for the editor. For this writer, 1989's version 5.5 was peak Turbo Pascal. Object-oriented programming features turned up, including classes and inheritance, and a step-by-step debugger.
Version 6 and 7 brought in inline assembly and support for the creation of Windows executables and DLLs respectively, but version 7 also marked the end of the line as far as Borland was concerned. Turbo Pascal for Windows would turn up, but was eventually superseded by Delphi.
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However, the steamroller of tools such as Visual Basic 3 ensured that Borland never had the same success in Windows that it enjoyed under DOS.
As for Turbo Pascal, several versions were eventually released by Borland as freeware including version 1 for DOS, 5.5, and 7.
The language might have offended Pascal purists and the IDE seems a little clunky nowadays when compared to modern tools. However, 40 years ago it prompted a new era of development, one whose influence can still be felt today. ®
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I may very well be wrong but I think the reason was that the (far cheaper?) educational version was only meant for teaching good programming style, not producing commercially viable end results.
not producing commercially viable end results.
In the classic fashion of keeping the poor out of the sauce that makes money.
EasyEdit 2 was written in Turbo Pascal
My little text editor with word processing ambitions.
It was all done in TP (mainly 5.5) with all sorts of nice stuff. It was lucky that I wasn't in a relationship at the time (1989) as I spent hours/days/weeks building and refining it. It got good reviews by Dick Pointain & other magazines. It kept my in computers (in the days when a 386 with an 80Mb disk cost (£3k)). Eventually it went out as shareware. I was working at DEC at the time (they let me sell it as mine) and I put Gold key functionality into it (if you know DEC, you know what I mean) just to sell a license to DEC themselves.
Bad bit - it was only DOS and even though it used extended memory and had overlays, it was killed off by WIndows 95. But it was fun while it lasted.
I've still got the source and executables and occasionally I roll it out in Dosbox to see how good I used to be :)
Answered your own question
> So why aren't we all using it today?
> its maker, Borland, wanted a little extra if a customer planned to distribute the binaries.
This is the only thing Microsoft has consistently got right.
Re: Answered your own question
Two answers to the first. Delphi replaced it and C and derivatives took over the programming world.
As to the second, Delphi cost more but it did include the right to redistribute. I lost track of Delphi after 7 but as far as I can make out Delphi the Microsoft IDE replaced Borland's own. It also got more and more ambitious and expensive.
I had a longish gig using Delphi (it helped that I'd used UCSD Pascal earlier). I like the RAD way of doing things. It forces the developer to start with the UI. I've seen too many examples where the developer seems to have looked on the requirement as a series of technical tasks, got those working separately and then jumbled them into a UI of sorts.
Richard, you've damaged me!
Just read today's 'Who, me?' and gave a wry smile at the mention that 'a Pentium 133 running Office 97 on Windows 95 was the height of business computing - after all, I can reasonably convince myself that was only a handful of years ago, right. scandisk ? Yup, I remember using that, too, and it really wasn't that long ago surely.
Now you come along and mention an IDE I remember using (with some fondness, too) but mercilessly highlight the year of its release. 40 years ago. Damn you. I'm now officially an old git ;)
Re: Richard, you've damaged me!
I was thinking along the same lines, TP 5.5 had many fond memories.
My memory may be totally off, but TP was not *that* different from Pascal, if there ever *was* a pure form. No different than, say, UCSD Pascal. That's speaking from using TP and UCSD on my Apple 2 and then learning the "pure" form at uni. Not sure saying Hejlsberg was the inventor is that correct, compared to Wirth.
That said, maybe later versions that then arrived on MSDOS were indeed quite different. Never used those. Only the Holy Trinity of 64KB, Z80-CP/M and 80-char cards! Who needed more than 64KB anyway?! ;)
i heard that Pascal was "teaching language" or something .
Why when teaching it did they not teach how to compile the program into a nice exe?
we always ended up running stuff from the IDE
half a job!