Questions tagged [pascal]
For questions regarding the use or installation of the Pascal language on retrocomputers.
29 questions
13votes
1answer
3kviews
Was there ever a C compiler written in Pascal?
When C was gaining popularity across various computer architectures and it was being ported to those architectures, was it always done via cross-compiling, or was there a known case of a C compiler ...
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6votes
1answer
406views
Reading a key in MSX without blocking?
Turbo Pascal 3.3 for MSX apparently didn't didn't have graphics, sound or other useful functions to write games, however it allows inline machine code to be injected by using the reserved word "...
- 1,696
3votes
2answers
637views
How can I use GSX in Turbo Pascal for CP/M-80?
Several versions of CP/M Plus came with a device-independent graphics library called GSX. It would be fairly easy to call this from Turbo Pascal: the CP/M-80 version of TP3 includes a function Bdos. I ...
- 3,925
6votes
0answers
259views
Enumerated types in Pascal: which compilers did I/O of them?
As far as can be seen in ISO 7185:1990, §6.9.1, page 60 read(f,vi,...,v„) shall access the textfile and establish a reference to that textfile for the remaining execution of the statement; each of vi,...
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29votes
8answers
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How can I reverse-engineer the game Wizardry (1981) for PC, based on UCSD Pascal?
I am looking at the files included with the 1981 game Wizardry. The particular version I have is from a 1998 re-release, but I do not know if the binary is still the original 1981 release. My ...
- 393
15votes
5answers
3kviews
Storing configuration directly in the executable, with no external config files
Back in the days when dinos talked fluently English, Arabic, Spanish and a bunch of other languages, when one could change tapes of a PDP-11 on the fly there was a programming language Turbo Pascal. I ...
- 393
21votes
8answers
7kviews
Did Pascal programmers really move on to Java in the 90s?
According to this video Pascal suffered great loss of percentage in the 90s. There is, contrary to the common belief that C prevailed over Pascal, a counterargument that Pascal programmers moved on to ...
- 3,814
-1votes
2answers
478views
How can I embed C++ Builder 6 (32-bit) VCL into a Delphi 7 (32-bit) VCL application by using a .DLL? [closed]
Note to the reviewer: Please sorry for my English, I don't speak it well. But all Information's should be reproduced. If you have any questions, let me know it. Thanks, Jens Hello, This is more a ...
- 83
9votes
2answers
420views
How did UCSD Pascal exception mechanism work?
In the UCSD PASCAL II.0 Manual, there is a description (document page 140, PDF page 153) of a peculiar language feature: instead of non-local GOTO statements, as in the Wirth's Pascal, there is ...
- 21.5k
6votes
1answer
624views
How do I read a port value using Turbo Pascal inline code on CP/M?
After successfully using port[0] to read a port value in Turbo Pascal, I thought I'd try to understand how to do this using inline assembly/machine code. I'm able to write to the port (my OutPort ...
- 839
21votes
2answers
4kviews
Who invented small string optimization?
In the source code of the 1972 Pascal compiler (a very large OCR-ed PDF), there are declarations of variables and record fields of type ALFA, which are "packed arrays" of 10 characters. ...
- 21.5k
17votes
4answers
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Why does Pascal have numeric labels?
Pascal was intended, in part, to be a simple language to implement. Some of the design decisions reflecting this are Declarations/definitions must be given in a strict order (labels, constants, types,...
- 3,800
7votes
1answer
2kviews
Was there a bug in Wirth's original Pascal compiler?
It appears that both legacy Pascal compilers I have access to (for the BESM-6) contain a bug: they would happily produce code for program test(output);(* may have to omit (output) depending on the ...
- 21.5k
6votes
0answers
227views
Was there another dialect of Pascal with this range checking feature?
I've decompiled yet another Pascal compiler for the BESM-6. While it does not implement the full language (for example, packed records and arrays are not implemented, helper routines SEL and INS are ...
- 21.5k
5votes
1answer
1kviews
Looking for the source code of a sophisticated Pascal pretty-printing program
I'm trying to find a 70s or very early 80s source code of a Pascal pretty-printing program which is more advanced than the version mentioned on the Prettyprint wiki page which is undated and somewhat ...
- 21.5k
