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