Turbo Pascal Turns 40 • Hacker News Board

Re: Turbo Pascal Turns 40

#31

Post by vram22 » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 10:39 PM UTC

cvwright wrote: post #7

bdcravens wrote: post #3

Never wrote a line of code in Turbo Pascal afterward, but taking it in HS (somewhat on accident) in 1995 was what set the trajectory for the rest of my life.

Same here. Even now, I still sometimes set my vim colors to blue background and yellow/white text.

Cool. I should try that. I was a heavy TP user too.

Man, this reminds me of amber screen monitors. I liked them better than the green screen ones, but somehow, the amber ones seemed to be much less popular, at least in areas where I was.

Re: Turbo Pascal Turns 40

#32

Post by stevage » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 10:41 PM UTC

Wow I wrote a lot of Pascal when I was a kid. I then did a bit of C but didn't like it much, and moved onto Delphi.

It hadn't occurred to me that Pascal is actually younger than me, though not by much.

Re: Turbo Pascal Turns 40

#33

Post by coliveira » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 10:43 PM UTC

My first language in college was TP. It was such a nice environment to use that when I first encountered gcc and similar UNIX compilers I thought them to be very primitive.

Re: Turbo Pascal Turns 40

#34

Post by agumonkey » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 10:43 PM UTC

Turbo Pascal and a few others programs of this era would still be utterly relevant technically and pragmatically. Don't forget the past.

Re: Turbo Pascal Turns 40

#35

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 10:45 PM UTC

The language that taught me systems programming should be all about, with proper security, modularity and good high level code, no need for lack of security shortcuts.

I was blessed to have learnt TP before C.

Happy birthday Turbo Pascal!

Re: Turbo Pascal Turns 40

#36

Post by mtillman » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 10:50 PM UTC

This brings back great memories. I wrote a text based adventure game in turbo pascal for a high school project (97/98) and had a blast. It was a really easy language for my needs and skill level. Started a life long love of code.

Re: Turbo Pascal Turns 40

#37

Post by technothrasher » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 10:52 PM UTC

blorenz wrote: post #28

My first exposure to TP was when I pirated it off a warez BBS in the winter of 93 at the age of 14. The raw power I felt when I compiled my own EXE in contrast to running just a .BAS file was enthralling! I started modding Renegade BBS and writing door programs. I tried to, unsuccessfully, create worms, Trojans and viruses. It changed my life and set me on a course for where I am in tech today. Moreover I’m reformed…

Ah, the good old BBS days. I wrote a door library for Turbo Pascal back in '89 when I was 17 after I learned how to write an interrupt based serial driver, and then released it as shareware. It saw quite a bit of use until the mid-90's when the BBS scene fell off a cliff.

Re: Turbo Pascal Turns 40

#38

Post by linsomniac » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

zwieback wrote: post #24

Ran it on my Apple ][. It was interesting because another great platform on the Apple was UCSD Pascal but Turbo was so much slicker and easier to use.

My High School had a computer lab of ~8 Apple ][s with dual floppy drives and the CPM board to run UCSD. It worked, but we were definitely limited in the number of computers we could use due to these limitations. I also had access to an HP 9835 also running USCD, so it was very familiar to me.

But part way through my class we switched from UCSD to Turbo Pascal, which only needed one floppy and just absolutely blazed. It was like a space age rocket ship.

Re: Turbo Pascal Turns 40

#39

Post by CoastalCoder » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

neilv wrote: post #10

When I was a kid, a kindly computer store owner (who also made me a great deal on an PC-semi-compatible running MS-DOS 1.25, for approx. a hundred lawns mowed and babies sat) sold me a copy of Turbo Pascal for generic MS-DOS (no PC BIOS assumed) on 8" floppy. He transferred it to the 160KB 5.25" format that my semi-compatible used. I hope I was appreciative enough at the time, as I am now. That helped bootstrap my ca…

Okay, I'll bite :)

What's this "PC-semi-compatible" of which you speak?

Re: Turbo Pascal Turns 40

#40

Post by FpUser » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 10:57 PM UTC

I mostly consider languages as a mere tools like a screwdrivers. But yet there is that warm fuzzy feeling when I remember lying my hands on Turbo Pascal. Comparatively to other "high level" tools of the time it was at the different level.

Happy Birthday