Archive for the ‘Pascal’ Category
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/12/19
Another episode in the Missed Schedule series that was originally scheduled for 20131201:
Until I read the comments at Monitoring the Monitor, I only knew the early days of Matt Pietrek‘s work at NuMega and as co-author of one of the first Undocumented Windows books (another one appeared about the same time).
Now I know Matt was one of the people interviewing Allen Bauer for his first position at Borland.
A bit more search revealed Matt worked at Borland from 1988 until 1992, roughly the era from Turbo Pascal 5 until Borland Pascal 7 (when Borland already had started researching Delphi), but more importantly with Turbo Debugger versions 1-3 that were indispensable when programming using Turbo C / Turbo C++ and Borland C++.
When Borland was working in Delphi 95, and Microsoft on Windows 95, he moved to Nu-Mega (later Acquired by Compuware) doing lots of work in debuggers.
Some interesting links from or involving Matt:
–jeroen
Posted in Borland Pascal, Debugging, Delphi, Delphi 1, Development, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/12/19
Almost a year ago, a thread on “premature Delphi optimization” came by on G+ about this code:
procedure ExchangeInteger(var AValue1, AValue2: Integer);
begin
AValue1 := AValue1 xor AValue2;
AValue2 := AValue1 xor AValue2;
AValue1 := AValue1 xor AValue2;
end;
I don’t think that was premature optimization, just some code from an old fart that had already been programming in the era where processors had reasons to use it:
Back then, the only efficient way to exchange two variables of the same data type was using the XOR swap algorithm.
Nowadays you have more options, and this is where the fun in that thread began, which I will show in a minute.
First a bit of history
The XOR swap algorithm was widely known in the 80s of last century and before, especially because the 6502 processor (oh the days of LISA Assembler) was vastly popular, as was the Z80. Together, they powered the majority of the home computers in the 70s and 80s.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Borland Pascal, Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi x64, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, UCSD Pascal | 7 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/08/27
The Dutch stop of the RAD Studio In Action LIVE! tour is on September 7th.
The venue location is via Holiday Inn Leiden Hotels: Haagse Schouwweg 10, 2332 KG Leiden, The Netherlands.
It is close to the advertised “Amsterdam Netherlands” (about half an hour drive), close to the A44 highway and close enough to public transport. And it is indeed on Saturday September 7, 2013
Full day event: RAD Studio In Action LIVE! + conference track Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Android, Android Devices, CodePlex, Conferences, Delphi, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Development, DVCS - Distributed Version Control, Event, FreePascal, git, iOS Development, Lazarus, Mercurial/Hg, Mobile Development, Power User, Software Development, Source Code Management, SourceForge, Subversion/SVN, TFS (Team Foundation System) | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/08/12
While researching some other historic information about Delphi, I bumped into this thread: New DPMI host – delphi.
If is a small thread describing what kinds and versions of DPMI hosts were available to run Turbo Pascal based programs.
DPMI stands DOS Protected Mode Interface: a way for real mode DOS programs to access protected mode features (mainly memory above the 1 megabyte barrier).
I had plainly forgotten that the DPMI host shipped with Delphi 1, and wasn’t aware you could have a 32-bit DPMI host at all.
Some other memory related abbreviations from that era: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Borland Pascal, Delphi, Delphi 1, Development, Object Pascal, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/07/20
Bitsavers published 2 new Logitech PDFs:
Who didn’t have a Logitech mouse back then?
I had the C7, various MouseMans, and a few more modern mice. Why not all mice? I developed RSI in the DOS era, ending up with TrackPoints and more recently Apple touchpads)
I remember the Logimouse C7, not because it was from Logitech, but because it was available from so may OEMs. Long before Logitech built OEM mice for Apple, they were founded in Apples, Swizerland.
The cool thing: the Programmers Toolkit had examples in Modula-2. I used that as a base to write quite some Turbo Pascal code for mouse handing.
Oh: Bitsavers does have a Logitech Modula-2 PDF online too for quite some time. I mentioned that in More Old Micro Cornucopia issues on BitSavers from 1987 and 1988.
–jeroen
via: Bitsavers’ Index of /pdf/logitech.
Posted in BitSavers.org, Development, History, Pascal, Power User, RSI, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | Tagged: c7, cornucopia, logitech mouse, modula 2 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/07/17
2 more issues got on-line both close to a 100 pages each:
So the only issues missing are #28, #30 and #31.
–jeroen
via: More Old Micro Cornucopia issues on BitSavers from 1987 and 1988 « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff.
Posted in Assembly Language, BitSavers.org, C, C++, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, Turbo Prolog, x86 | Tagged: Media, technology | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/07/10
Just found out that the kind people at BitSavers added some scanned USCD Pascal documentation in PDF format:
It reminds me of my early Pascal days on Apple ][. UCSD Pascal was so slow that I was glad to discover Turbo Pascal 1.0, which lacked some of the UCSD Pascal features (for instance cross platform – including Mac, almost 30 years ago! – and Turtle graphics), but was blazingly fast.
Trade offs indeed (:
–jeroen
Posted in BitSavers.org, Delphi, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, UCSD Pascal | 10 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/07/01
Niklaus Wirth developed the Pascal Programming Language in the early 1970s.
This summer, 40 years ago, he published an important report in that era: “The Programming Language Pascal (Revised Report) July 1973“.
The report describes the language after it had been use in a while and includes a few language changes (packed records and arrays, file handling behaviour, and a few others) introducing a period of language stability.
If you are part of the Swiss research community, you can download the original PDF at
http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:3059/eth-3059-01.pdf?pid=eth:3059&dsID=eth-3059-01.pdf
If you are not, then Switch.ch will block access.
However, there are at least 2 ways to view the report:
An earlier (November 1972) draft of the report is also available.
–jeroen
Posted in Development, Pascal, Software Development, Standard Pascal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/06/04
Things That Turbo Pascal is Smaller Than.
Well basically anything.
About 30k was the size our complete IDE in the 80s century.
(Thanks @pstalenh and @rand)
–jeroen
Posted in Delphi, Development, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | 4 Comments »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 