lipman@decwrl.UUCP (02/13/84)
From: dosadi::binder (Wanted: A good five-cent nickel) I have seen several queries re: Borland International's TURBO Pascal, and thought I'd pass on what I know of it from experience and hearsay. 1. TURBO Pascal is a full Jensen/Wirth Pascal except that it does READ and WRITE rather than GET and PUT. It also does BLOCK READ and BLOCK WRITE. It does NOT do sequential access - it's all random access. 2. You can of course invoke procedures recursively. You cannot pass a procedure or a function as a parameter to another procedure. 3. The following extensions are supported: a. BDOS/BIOS direct calls. b. Inline code. c. Include. d. Absolute variable addressing. e. Logical operators. f. Program chaining (not overlays). g. Structured constants. h. Variant records. i. ELSE condition on CASE statement. 4. String handling includes full dynamic strings, with the following ops: a. Concat. b. Copy. c. Position. d. Length. e. Value/String (for string/variable conversion). f. Delete/Insert. 5. You can pass parameters on the calling command line, at least with some systems. IBM does, Apple may. 6. You can create data structures larger than 64Kbytes, although no single object may be larger than 64K: Var I : array[32000] of integer; { Works } Var I : array[64000] of integer; { Doesn't work } 7. TURBO is available for most CP/M, CCP/M, MS-DOS, and similar systems. See below, about the guarantee. TURBO compiles and links so fast partially because it has a really snappy way of implicit linking in memory, thereby avoiding much explicit linker activity. The fast compile/link times might even include some disk activity, if you have a fast disk. Track-to-track slows you down otherwise. There is a definite difference between memory-only and disk compiles; you use the memory-only version to test things and then you save the final working version by doing a disk compile. The editor is very much like WordStar, except that it does just fine on the 40-column screen of my Apple. Turbo allows installation of innumerable different terminals, more than 30 on the copy I bought, and they keep adding to it. It allows redefinition of all the editor commands to make it look like your favourite screenhacker. There is a money-back guarantee if it simply won't work on your system. But if Elmo Zwicky down the street turns up with another vendor's product and you decide you like it better, no thanks. Don't waste their time and your money. The reason for the guarantee is that their master disk can produce over 30 system/format variations, and if you have some off-the-wall system and think you might be able to read XYZ format and then find you can't, they won't penalise you for that. The disk is not copy-protected, and they include a 250-page manual ("READ IT!" was what the guy said) and they also include, if you buy before the end of February, a small spreadsheet called Microcalc, written in Turbo Pascal. The source is included. There are a few bugs, all the more fun to find and fix. This spreadsheet won't compile in the memory-only mode on an Apple, but it does just fine when compiled on disk. For what my opinions are worth, BUY IT!!! It is far better than any other Pascal I've dealt with. - Dick Binder decvax!decwrl!rhea!dosadi!binder