shatara@memit.dec.com (Chris: 223-8753, TECHNOLOGY OFFICE, MLO1-4/T35 05-Sep-1989 1945) (09/06/89)
I'd like to thank Robert Hess of Microsoft for his update on exactly what is happeing with TML Pascal II. Since many of you have been asking, I thought I would post it here. (Hope you don't mind Bob). ---------------------- attachment ------------------------ David & Chris, Unfortunately, TML has run into several unanticipated problems while developing Pascal II, and this has caused them to miss their intended shipping date (several times). Some of the problems were simply with the increased complexity of what they are hoping to accomplish with Pascal II, while others can be directly associated with the release of System 5.0. Not only was Apple behind in their schedule to get 5.0 into the hands of major developers, but once it was, there were still a few bugs lying about. Most of them have appeared to be in the new toolsets, so they would not affect many of the programs that were not taking full advantage of 5.0, but TML was relying heavily on many of the new tools, and were bitten several times by these occasional problems. Their most recent problem (which was found *as* they were preparing to duplicate disks for manufacturing) appears to be related to the TextEdit toolset trashing memory under certain circumstanses. Since TML will be using the TextEdit toolset to pretty much it's full potential, almost any minor bug in this tool would cause them grief. They are currently working with Apple to determine the cause of this problem, and what can be done to work around it. They are as anxious to get Pascal II out the door, as you (and I) are to get it. I have worked with preliminaries of their system, and although it doesn't have _everything_ I could hope for, it definately does come close to it. I think you will be quite pleased with the final product, and it will be worth the unfortunate wait. - Robert Hess