BUDDENBERGRA@USC-ISI.ARPA (Rex Buddenberg) (07/30/85)
TURBO-MODULA-II IS NEARLY HERE For those of you who wanted a large-program, modern, structured language in a usable implementation, for REAL computers (Z80 types, 8088's need not apply), there is hope. Allow me to present the evidence. This past weekend, I had the priviledge of attending SOG-IV, Dave Thompson's (MicroCornucopia) annual picnic and computerists whing-ding. Philippe Kahn didn't make it this year, but sent Mike Weisert, one of Borland's programmers instead. Mike's topic was "Intro to Modula-II & the Borland Implementation". After comparing and contrasting Pascal and Modula for a while, he got to the important points: how Borland was building the compiler. Selected tidbits (those that my brain retained): - The compiler actually exists. Mike had a Kaypro with the compiler up and running. The top menu looks (strangely) like the Turbo-Pascal menu. The editor is the same too. Borland is adhering to the Rev-3 Modula specification. - Because Modula has separate compilation as part of the compiler specification rather than part of the implementation, the compiler compiles to disk. Sorry, no in-RAM compilation. The top menu also directly calls the linker. The demo program used some familiar modules adapted from the Turbo-tools ACCESS.BOX package, so I expect to see them available too. --------------------------------- Dates weren't mentioned, but the product demo was real enough to convince me that this wasn't vapor. The CPM version was the one shown. The MS-DOS version is not nearly as far along and Mike offered no prognostication regarding its availability. 8088 owners...suffer! Mike wouldn't quote a specific price, but said "under $100". -------