Turbo Pascal

[AutoAdmin]

Feel free to rate and discuss this utility.

[E.K.Virtanen]

I made one of my first programs for PC with TB. I loved it back then but these days, i dont use any Pascal compilers nearly at all.
But stil, in my memories TB gets INT(7+) which is 8

[DOSGuy]

I love Pascal. I started programming in BASIC by typing out Vic 20 games from those BASIC books they used to sell. Line numbers and GOTOs! I started programming in QBASIC and QuickBASIC when I got a PC, but I didn't know how to program without line numbers!

In high school they taught us Pascal. Pascal actually became a teaching language very early in its life (as did BASIC, because it was so easy to learn), because it's a structured programming language, and it's strongly-typed, which forces you to develop good programming habits. In C, you can use data however you want to, regardless of how you defined it. In Pascal, you have to show the compiler that you really want to use the data in a different way by either typecasting it or converting it. You also have to declare your variables at the top of the program/function/procedure, which make you think about variables you're going to need before you start programming (and prevents you from duplicating or losing track of variables, or wasting memory with unused variables).

Pascal was my first structured programming language, and forced me to use procedures and functions instead of GOTOs. It wasn't until I learned Pascal that I could program in QBASIC without line numbers, and use subroutines instead of GOSUBs.

Later on they taught us Delphi, which I still use. It's incredibly easy to design a GUI, and we already knew Pascal syntax. Delphi is really fun to work with. I definitely recommend Pascal to anyone who wants to learn good programming habits, or wants to use Delphi to make Windows or Linux programs.

Once you've learned how to program, you can learn any other programming language by learning the new syntax and rules. Although Pascal isn't used as much as C, which is syntactically similar to Java and PHP, learning Pascal first will give you a good foundation in the principles of programming and prevent you from getting bad habits. C is known for its ease of creating spaghetti code and can become totally unreadable when written by an inexperienced programmer.

[Videogamer555]

Where can I download Turbo Pascal?

[deathshadow]

I gave it a 10, but then I'm a wee bit predjudiced since I just started releasing new games written in it

Where can I download Turbo Pascal?

Embaretardobarcawhateverthehellthey'recalled, the current license holder is still doing what borland did, allowing versions 5.5 and 3 to be freely distributed... though from their site you have to join the 'developer network' and you'll get the download link by e-mail (stupid ass nonsense to still be doing in 2011)

http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/20803 -- for 5.5

http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/20792 -- for 3.02

The older version is handy for making utilities especially on single floppy systems since, well... it actaully fits on a single 360k floppy with room to spare. 5.5 is handy since for the most part there's nothing really "new" in 6/7 except better optimized math, newer processor support and smaller/faster executables... 5.5 is when objects were introduced to the Borland series of Pascal compilers, taking Apple's "object pascal" and doing something useful with it after a few simple changes.

Though if possible, I suggest finding a copy of TP7 if you want to write DOS games (like say.. a less reputable site like WinWorld). It wasn't just the last of the DOS only versions, it was the fastest with the tightest executables -- it's what I've been making Paku Paku and my forthcoming unnamed games in. There's also "borland pascal 7" which is DIFFERENT from "Borland Turbo Pascal 7" in that it includes 286 protected mode support and even the 'stirrings' of windows support that led to the creation of Delphi.

Though at that point if you want to use Pascal on a modern system, I HIGHLY recommend Free Pascal.
http://www.freepascal.org/

Which in recent versions includes SDL and OpenGL api's, making the creation of cross-platform games pretty easy. I'm working on having my next game also have a FPC/SDL native release, though the jury is still out on if it's worth the effort or if I should just keep telling modern players to "just use DosBox".

Of course, it often helps to have the manuals to these compilers, thankfully over at bitsavers.org they have a nice directory chock-full of PDF's to get one started.
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/borland/

I would also be remiss in failing to pimp "Pascal Game Development" -- fun website with an active forums full of knowledgable people willing to shepherd those new to the field.

http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/

Ah, Pascal. Good stuff.

[DOSGuy]

This isn't just some random poll; this thread exists because Turbo Pascal is hosted on this site! Everything that's legal can be downloaded here.

[Imp]

Pascal is my favorite language although I began learning C or C++