Questions tagged [pascal]
For questions regarding the use or installation of the Pascal language on retrocomputers.
25 questions
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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 ...
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14
votes
5
answers
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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 ...
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8
answers
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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 ...
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2
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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 ...
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2
answers
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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
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6
votes
1
answer
576
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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 ...
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21
votes
2
answers
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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.
...
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17
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4
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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,...
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7
votes
1
answer
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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 ...
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6
votes
0
answers
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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 ...
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5
votes
1
answer
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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 ...
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9
votes
1
answer
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Is this a bug or an allowed Pascal behavior?
Consider the following Pascal program:
1 1 PROGRAM MAIN(OUTPUT); VAR F:TEXT; I:INTEGER;
2 2 BEGIN
3 2 REWRITE(F);
4 3 FOR I := 10 TO 30 DO BEGIN
5 3 WRITELN( I, ’...
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12
votes
1
answer
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How much time and how many people were required to develop Delphi version 1?
I would guess the compiler was primarily a modification of Borland's Turbo Pascal, while the Integrated Development Environment and Visual Component Library required a lot more development from ...
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1
answer
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Why did MS-DOS applications built using Turbo Pascal fail to start with a division by zero error on faster systems?
On faster MS-DOS systems, it wasn't entirely uncommon for applications built using Borland's Turbo Pascal to fail to start, and (before exiting back to the command prompt) to report a division by zero ...
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7
votes
1
answer
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Was dynamic type check in Pascal commonplace?
The BESM-6 Pascal compiler I'm experimenting with has a notable difference from Standard Pascal: formal arguments of formal parameters-procedures or functions are not specified, but are checked at ...
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32
votes
3
answers
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Was Dennis Ritchie being too modest in this quote about C and Pascal?
In his 1993 conference proceeding The Development of the C Language, Dennis Ritchie stated
Successors
C and even B have several direct descendants, though they do not rival Pascal in ...
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2
votes
1
answer
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How to transfer file from one disk to another in Apple //e (Applewin)
For the nostalgia, I'm going through Apple Pascal - A Hands-on Approach using AppleWin.
There are four disks, pascal0 through pascal3, and for some reason pascal0 is missing a file called SYSTEM....
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7
votes
1
answer
305
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Cross-Compatibility of UCSD p-Machine Versions?
I currently have Apple Pascal (and Fortran, and PILOT) running on an Apple IIgs emulator on Windows. As near as I can tell, it's UCSD p-System II.something. I also have a DOS-hosted UCSD p-System, IV....
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2
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Why is the following p-Code generated by the Apple 3 pascal compiler?
On an Apple 3 the following pascal function
function randu( High: integer): integer;
begin
randu:= random mod High
end;
will be translated to
Proc = 06
Typ = P-Code
codeBeg = 02A6
Exitcode=...
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votes
3
answers
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x86 as a Pascal Machine?
From this answer by gsg about the usage of certain x86 instructions:
Note that the x86 was originally designed as a Pascal machine, which is why there are instructions to support nested functions (...
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22
votes
6
answers
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What caused the downfall of Pascal? [closed]
From 1985 to 1990 Borland's Turbo Pascal was at least as popular as C for DOS systems. Turbo Pascal was especially popular because of it's ground breaking BGI graphics interface while C was stalled in ...
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Why was nil defined as a reserved word in Pascal?
In Pascal, nil (the pointer value to "nothing") is a reserved word. Why wasn't it simply a predefined identifier as true and false are, for example?
This is stated in PASCAL User Manual and Report p....
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votes
3
answers
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What was the point of Apple Pascal having its own file system?
Apple's UCSD Pascal for the Apple II used its own file system rather than the existing DOS 3.3 of the day. I'm not sure if it overlapped SOS at all, but regardless of timelines it seems that the ...
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7
votes
3
answers
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When were the analogs of the C operators "break" and "continue" introduced in Pascal?
When published in 1970, the Pascal language did not have a way to implement the functionality equivalent to the (future) C language operators "break" and "continue". Their convenience having been ...
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40
votes
4
answers
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Where does the branch…of/back control flow construct in a Soviet dialect of Pascal come from?
In the documentation for an implementation of Pascal for a Soviet computer, I've encountered a very weird language extension. I'll try to translate it:
Branching operator (branch)
Syntax
&...
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