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Posted by jpluimers on 2025/05/07
The people knowing about the really early Pascal history are a dying breed. So before I pass away (see the posts on my rectum cancer), let me post a few more links here that based on yesterday’s Trip down memory lane: book on p-Code based UCSD Pascal which I ended with:
I learned a few more things from [Wayback/Archive] What do you think about something like Pascal bytecode? (Page 2)
Here we go:
Posted in archive.is / archive.today, Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, DVCS - Distributed Version Control, Event, gist, GitHub, Internet, InternetArchive, LISP, Pascal, Power User, Software Development, Source Code Management, Standard Pascal, UCSD Pascal, WayBack machine | Tagged: 1, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 2, 20, 21, 22, 23a, 24, 25, 26, 27, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/05/06
Last week I wrote on File scoped namespaces – C# 10.0 draft specifications | Microsoft Learn, promising to write more on p-Code and UCSD Pascal. That’s now (:
I started with [Wayback/Archive] “java byte code” “ucsd” “p-code” – Google Search as I was looking for really old material on this (Java 1.0 versions became available in the 1994-1995 time frame, and a lot of material back then either did not make it to the World Wide Web (which slowly gained popularity around that time, see History of the World Wide Web) or has vanished due to link rot.
The cool thing is that many “new” people are not even aware of p-Code, as the 2019 thread [Wayback/Archive] What do you think about something like Pascal bytecode? shows.
I learned a thing or two from it as well, for instance that there has been a “recent” book on UCSD Pascal:
Posted in Apple Pascal, Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, DVCS - Distributed Version Control, Event, gist, GitHub, History, Internet, link rot, Pascal, Power User, Software Development, Source Code Management, Standard Pascal, Turbo Pascal, UCSD Pascal, WWW - the World Wide Web of information | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/05/01
Oops, I thought this had been published a long time ago, but oh well: it is never too late to publish reflections on a C# programming language improvement.
After recovering from my rectum cancer treatments and finally upgrading most of my projects to recent enough C# versions, it was time to catch up on useful little C# language features released during my treatments.
This one is really nice: [Wayback/Archive] File scoped namespaces – C# 10.0 draft specifications | Microsoft Learn.
I wish it had been released much earlier, as it so much reminds me of the unit keyword in Delphi which influenced C# a lot. Well, actually the unit actually started in UCSD Pascal and Turbo Pascal; UCSD Pascal ran on the UCSD p-Machine (more on that in a future blog post), which influenced the Java Virtual Machine, which was based on Java bytecode and a Just-in-time compiler in turn influenced the .NET Common Language Runtime.
There are many examples from other languages, paradigms and frameworks: I love how C# and .NET bring so much programming history together.
In Delphi it is easy: a source file can contain at maximum one unit (and apart from files included in that source file, no other source files can contribute to that unit) and the filename needs to match the unitname, so the unit is a self contained namespace.
Posted in .NET, About, C#, C# 10, Cancer, Delphi, Development, Java, Java Platform, Jon Skeet, Pascal, Personal, Rectum cancer, Rider from JetBrains, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, UCSD Pascal, Visual Studio and tools, vscode Visual Studio Code | Tagged: 1509, 35690, 36566, 44201, msbuild, region | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2022/05/27
A while ago [Archive.is] Adam Jacob on Twitter: “Let’s say nice things about technology today. I’ll start. If it wasn’t for @lkanies and @puppetize, there is no way we would have been able to adapt as an industry to the rise of the cloud. Quote tweet me with your own.” sparked some interesting threads.
First posts are below; click on them to see the full threads.
Posted in Chrome, Configuration Management, Development, DevOps, Firefox, History, IaC - Infrastructure as Code, Infocom and Z-machine, Infrastructure, KVM Kernel-based Virtual Machine, LSI/3ware, Open Source, PDP-11, Power User, PowerShell, Puppet, Python, Qemu, Rust, Safari, Scripting, Software Development, UCSD Pascal, Vagrant, Veewee, Virtualization, Web Browsers, Xen | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/05/19
Editing [WayBack] What is a Delphi DCU file? – Stack Overflow for more historic correctness and adding links prompted me to archive some older material and search for some more, basically because while historically very relevant, link rot makes a lot of that stuff harder and harder to find.
The legendary full page colour advert published in the 12th 1983 issue of Byte Magazine on page 456 is at the bottom of this post (Many BYTE magaine issues have been archived at https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine).
The smaller version below is from WayBack: Sip from the Firehose : November 2008 marks the 25th anniversary of Turbo Pascal v1.0! (this article is not available on the Embarcadero or Idera site any more).
I also included more adverts in reverse chronological order at the end:
The last two via [WayBack] saundby.com: Software for the Ampro Little Board.
--jeroen
Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, CP/M, Delphi, Development, Event, History, MS-DOS, Pascal, Power User, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, UCSD Pascal, Z80 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/05
Back in my school days, this was the best Pascal book you could get: “Advanced Pascal Programming Techniques” – Google Search.
This is Apple Pasca, USD Pascal, first Turbo Pascal era.
Sadly, getting English books in The Netherlands was hard. So I had to do with books from Academic Press which not as good.
Via:
–jeroen
Posted in Apple Pascal, Borland Pascal, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, UCSD Pascal | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2015/03/30
For anyone keeping up with Pascal history, these uploads are new:
–jeroen
via: Index of /pdf/pascalNews.
Posted in Apple Pascal, BitSavers.org, DEC Pascal, Delphi, Development, History, IBM Pascal, Pascal, Software Development, Standard Pascal, Turbo Pascal, UCSD Pascal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/02/25
This post lists a lot of links related to the history of Pascal / Object Pascal / Delphi Language / FreePascal / etc.
No mentioning of Pascal should start without Niklaus Wirth. At the time of writing he is still alive, hopefully he still is a the time of publication.
Link clearance.
Categories on my blog:
–jeroen
Posted in Apple Pascal, BitSavers.org, Borland Pascal, DEC Pascal, Delphi, Development, FreePascal, History, Object Pascal, Pascal, Software Development, Think Pascal, Turbo Pascal, UCSD Pascal | 7 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/01/24
Being away from a computer sometimes means you forget about events.
So before I forget: happy 30th birthday Mac!
For me, real programming started 31 years ago on an Apple II at high school, soon followed by a II+ and a //e. At first, I was programming in both Integer Basic and AppleSoft Basic, then with Apple Pascal (which was based on UCSD Pascal, but way too slow), and finally with Turbo Pascal 1.0 (after they installed a Microsoft Z-80 softcard in a few of the machines which allowed it to run CP/M).
Back then me, nor my parents could afford a computer like a Mac, but I was lucky enough to keep on people at the “close by” (30 minutes by bicycle) University to use one and program in hyper card and various Pascal dialects (and later Delphi).
Now I own a few Macs (most more portable than the //c) bought a //e and //c last summer and collecting some extension cards to make life easier.
Just look at the B&N magazine rack how popular the Apple stuff is today:
So again: happy 30th birthday Mac!
Without you, I wouldn’t be a software developer.
–jeroen
via: Apple bracht eerste Mac-computer 30 jaar geleden uit – Computer – Nieuws – Tweakers.
Posted in //e, Apple, Apple Pascal, Delphi, Development, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Object Pascal, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Pascal, Power User, Software Development, Think Pascal, Turbo Pascal, UCSD Pascal | 1 Comment »
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.
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.
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 »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 