denbeste@bgsuvax.UUCP (11/21/87)
Found in PC week 22 sep 87, page 148: > ... early in 1988 ... there's a good chance Sir Kahn's company will > have sold off most of its Macintosh product lines, currently offered > by Borland to several firms including Apple's software spinoff, Claris. This really concerns me. Does any one have any more information about this? If they can't find a buyer, will they stop supporting Turbo Pascal alltogether? If they do find a buyer will the language/interface change? Does anyone have any info about the differences between IBM Turbo Pascal, Mac Turbo Pascal, and Lightspeed pascal? I have programs that were ported from IBM turbo pascal to Mac Turbo pascal. How easily can I port them to Lightspeed and others from IBM Turbo to Lightspeed Pascal? Many questions, but this could create a small problem. --- William C. DenBesten | CSNET denbeste@research1.bgsu.edu Dept of Computer Science | UUCP ...!cbosgd!osu-cis!bgsuvax!denbeste Bowling Green State University | Bowling Green, OH 43403-0214 |
hannon@clio.las.uiuc.edu (11/22/87)
denbeste@bgsuvax.UUCP(William DenBesten) writes in comp.sys.mac >Found in PC week 22 sep 87, page 148: > >> ... early in 1988 ... there's a good chance Sir Kahn's company will >> have sold off most of its Macintosh product lines, currently offered >> by Borland to several firms including Apple's software spinoff, Claris. > >This really concerns me. > >Does any one have any more information about this? >If they can't find a buyer, will they stop supporting Turbo Pascal alltogether? >If they do find a buyer will the language/interface change? Considering that Borland just created a WHOLE NEW DIVISION dedicated to Macintosh development, I think that you have very little to worry about. >Does anyone have any info about the differences between IBM Turbo >Pascal, Mac Turbo Pascal, and Lightspeed pascal? I have programs that >were ported from IBM turbo pascal to Mac Turbo pascal. How easily can >I port them to Lightspeed and others from IBM Turbo to Lightspeed Pascal? I understand (though have never tried it) that IBM Turbo and Mac Turbo are code compatable (I would assume that libraries may differ, but other than that..). Porting from IBM Turbo or Mac Turbo to LSP is not a great hard- ship, but it is neither a piece of cake. The code itself will not need to be rewritten but your includes/uses statements will need some rewrites since LSP handles this stuf quite differently from both Turbo and MPW. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + | + + Leonard Rosenthol | USnail: 205 E. Healey #33 + + Halevai Software | Champaign, Il 61820 + + GEnie: MACgician | + + ARPA: hannon@clio.las.uiuc.edu | Bitnet: 3FLOSDQ@UIUCNOSA.BITNET + + {ihnp4|convex|pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!hannon + +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Disclaimer #1: Since I own the company, I can say whatever I want, and + + not be responsible for it! + + + + Disclaimer #2: Anything I say may be construed as being under the + + jurisdiction of Disclaimer #1 + +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
lsr@apple.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein) (11/23/87)
In article <1394@bgsuvax.UUCP> denbeste@bgsuvax.UUCP (William C. DenBesten) writes: >Found in PC week 22 sep 87, page 148: > >> ... early in 1988 ... there's a good chance Sir Kahn's company will >> have sold off most of its Macintosh product lines, currently offered >> by Borland to several firms including Apple's software spinoff, Claris. > >This really concerns me. A few weeks ago, Borland announced they were going to set up a new Macintosh products division. They also signed an agreement with Apple in which the 2 companies would define and develop communications products. (This is from p.3 of the Oct 13 MacWeek.) We even had a big party here in honor of the agreement, so it must be true. :-) -- Larry Rosenstein Object Specialist Apple Computer AppleLink: Rosenstein1 UUCP: {sun, voder, nsc, mtxinu, dual}!apple!lsr CSNET: lsr@Apple.com
gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) (11/23/87)
In article <1394@bgsuvax.UUCP> denbeste@bgsuvax.UUCP (William C. DenBesten) writes: >Found in PC week 22 sep 87, page 148: > >> ... early in 1988 ... there's a good chance Sir Kahn's company will >> have sold off most of its Macintosh product lines, currently offered >> by Borland to several firms including Apple's software spinoff, Claris. Probably a silly rumor. Borland seems to have committed itself more strongly to the Mac since Sept. But, then, you never can tell... >Does anyone have any info about the differences between IBM Turbo >Pascal, Mac Turbo Pascal, and Lightspeed pascal? I don't have direct experience converting IBM Turbo to Mac Turbo but a colleague of mine does. I could provide more detailed info on request. However, to be brief, he was VERY disappointed with compatability between the two products. I was quite surprised to hear this, since you would think that the main motivation for doing the port was to give customers access to that large body of IBM Turbo code. The problems I remember offhand were: movetoxy uses screen coordinates with (0,0) in the upper-left-hand corner of the IBM screen but in the middle of the Mac screen (I can't possibly imagine why this change was made); and most of the extensions to Pascal in IBM Turbo are not available in Mac Turbo. The Mac Turbo seems more concerned about Lisa Pascal compatability than IBM Turbo compatability. Strange choice in my opinion. Robert Gardner
eddings@apple.UUCP (Ken Eddings) (11/24/87)
In article <6804@apple.UUCP> lsr@apple.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein) writes: >In article <1394@bgsuvax.UUCP> denbeste@bgsuvax.UUCP (William C. DenBesten) writes: >>Found in PC week 22 sep 87, page 148: >> >>> ... early in 1988 ... there's a good chance Sir Kahn's company will >>> have sold off most of its Macintosh product lines, currently offered >>> by Borland to several firms including Apple's software spinoff, Claris. >> >>This really concerns me. > >A few weeks ago, Borland announced they were going to set up a new Macintosh >products division. They also signed an agreement with Apple in which the 2 >companies would define and develop communications products. (This is from >p.3 of the Oct 13 MacWeek.) > >We even had a big party here in honor of the agreement, so it must be true. >:-) > >-- >Larry Rosenstein > >Object Specialist >Apple Computer > >AppleLink: Rosenstein1 >UUCP: {sun, voder, nsc, mtxinu, dual}!apple!lsr >CSNET: lsr@Apple.com And at this party, they had a nice 5-piece jazz ensemble that played for the evening. It was only as the party was breaking up that I met the sax player and found out that he was Philipe Kahn himself. He's not a bad sax player for a mover-and-shaker!
howard@cpocd2.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) (11/25/87)
>denbeste@bgsuvax.UUCP(William DenBesten) writes in comp.sys.mac >>Found in PC week 22 sep 87, page 148: >> >>> ... early in 1988 ... there's a good chance Sir Kahn's company will >>> have sold off most of its Macintosh product lines, currently offered >>> by Borland to several firms including Apple's software spinoff, Claris. In article <17000069@clio> hannon@clio.las.uiuc.edu writes: > Considering that Borland just created a WHOLE NEW DIVISION dedicated to >Macintosh development, I think that you have very little to worry about. Boy, talk about naivete! When one is considering selling off a portion of one's business, *the* *first* *step* is often making a separate division out of it. That way you can do separate accounting, move them into a different building, etc., etc. I would view this fact as confirming, not denying, the rumor. -- Howard A. Landman {oliveb,hplabs}!intelca!mipos3!cpocd2!howard howard%cpocd2.intel.com@RELAY.CS.NET "Press here"
farrell@banana.UUCP (11/30/87)
In article <7576@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes: >I don't have direct experience converting IBM Turbo to Mac Turbo but >a colleague of mine does. I could provide more detailed info on request. >However, to be brief, he was VERY disappointed with compatability >between the two products. I was quite surprised to hear this, since >you would think that the main motivation for doing the port was to give >customers access to that large body of IBM Turbo code. I have had lots (2 years) of experience with Turbo on the PC, and some (one 4000 line program) experience with Turbo on the Mac. I think any idea of converting from PC to Mac is outrageously ambitious to say the very least. As far as I'm concerned, they're two very different machines, and you can't reasonably expect to port stuff between them. More to the point, the Mac interface is so much better there's no reason you'd want to. (This is a PC owner saying this !) For a start, the whole structure of an application is nowhere near the same. I haven't used the Mac Turbo standard Pascal units, because I can't see any point, but I wouldn't expect to port stuff from the PC even if I was using them. >The problems I remember offhand were: movetoxy uses screen coordinates >with (0,0) in the upper-left-hand corner of the IBM screen but in the >middle of the Mac screen (I can't possibly imagine why this change was >made); and most of the extensions to Pascal in IBM Turbo are not >available in Mac Turbo. The Mac Turbo seems more concerned about Lisa >Pascal compatability than IBM Turbo compatability. Strange choice in >my opinion. I think this choice is marvellous. When I started programming the Mac, I had a copy of Inside Mac - in fact I believe it was the Mac Development System for the Lisa or something similarly archaic. If Turbo hadn't followed the Lisa Pascal standard, I would have been blowing bubbles from the bottom of a pile of deep shit. Then when I got Mac Revealed, I found I could copy big chunks of code directly from the book into Turbo with no changes. That got the Mac dependent frame of the program done, so I could get on with the real work. > >Robert Gardner I think the real thing Turbo has to offer, which it does on both machines, is the ability to compile into and run from memory, instead of dropping back to the Finder all the time. Systems like this are especially needed on the Mac where there's not really any idea of invoking an application to process something without taking over the screen, and if an application takes over the screen it should jolly well do something with it. The other (lesser) thing which Turbo has to offer is speed - it seems to me that Borland products produce less secure code which gets the job done. (This is not intended to be a slur on Borland - I love it myself.) In summary, I think Turbo Mac is a very useful product, but Turbo shouldn't be considered a language which automatically runs on two radically different machines. It's no wonder they call me ... Friendless farrell@banana.uq.oz DISCLAIMER : They're my opinions - sue me for all I'm worth. "I have a degree but no money - what am I doing wrong ?"
rick@uwmacc.UUCP (the absurdist) (11/30/87)
>In article <7576@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes: >However, to be brief, he was VERY disappointed with compatability >between the two products. I was quite surprised to hear this, since >you would think that the main motivation for doing the port was to give >customers access to that large body of IBM Turbo code. Turbo Pascal for the Mac is a fairly straight implementation of Lisa Pascal; the major changes are (1) additon of a unit number to the header of a UNIT declaration, and (2) some minor changes in the syntax of compiler pseudo comments. Moving between the Lisa and MPW Pascal dialects (both from Apple), Turbo, TML, and LightSpeed is quite trivial. Generally once you have changed the compiler directives and the unit declarations statements the only thing left is that LightSpeed conversions need a rewrite of the initialization code, since they automatically initialize some things that the other 4 compilers leave to be explicitly initialized. IBM Turbo code, as exemplified by a 40-diskette source code library I have access to here, is largely worthless; 90% of it is using tricks involving stuffing values into registers and calling an interrupt, or writing directly into memory locations, etc.; it would be shaky enough on a non-clone MS-DOS machine, let alone on a non-DOS machine. The stuff which qualifies as "Pascal" rather than "Turbo Pascal" generally runs fine. -- Rick Keir -- all the oysters have moved away -- UWisc - Madison "Watch the skies...."
john@felix.UUCP (John Gilbert) (12/08/87)
In article <6804@apple.UUCP> lsr@apple.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein) writes:
:
:A few weeks ago, Borland announced they were going to set up a new Macintosh
:products division. They also signed an agreement with Apple in which the 2
:companies would define and develop communications products. (This is from
:p.3 of the Oct 13 MacWeek.)
:
:We even had a big party here in honor of the agreement, so it must be true.
::-)
Gee, why weren't "the rest of us" invited? :-}, :-}, :-}
--
John Gilbert
!trwrb!felix!john