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Turbo Pascal on CP/M, MSX-DOS and MS-DOS – Pascal for Small Machines
The Pascal language was named after Blaise Pascal (see picture), a French mathematician who was a pioneer in computer development history. In 1641, at the age of eighteen, Pascal constructed the first arithmetical machine, arguably the first computer. He would improve upon the instrument eight years later. In 1650, Pascal left the world of geometry and physics, and shifted his focus towards religious studies, or, as Pascal wrote, to “contemplate the greatness and the misery of man.” Pascal died in Paris on August 19, 1662.
Niklaus Wirth completed development of the original Pascal programming language in 1970. He based it upon the block structured style of the Algol programming language. There were two original goals for Pascal. According to the Pascal Standard (ISO 7185), these goals were to a) make available a language suitable for teaching programming as a systematic discipline based on fundamental concepts clearly and naturally reflected by the language, and b) to define a language whose implementations could be both reliable and efficient on then-available computers.
Pascal was used in the seventies and eighties as the computer language in programming education. It served as the main programming language to teach structured programming.Many compilers were available for all current platforms these days. The language itself is a standard now (ANSI) but also served as model used by Wirth for more advanced (modular) languages such as Modula and Oberon.
Borland produced Turbo Pascal both for CP/M and MS-DOS, version 3 was a huge success and much of the software in the eighties on small computers is written with Turbo Pascal. Alas it was not standard Pascal, instead very practical adapted to the CP/M and MS-DOS environment.
Version 3 was the last version for CP/M, on the PC many versions followed (Borland Pascal 7 was the last DOS-based) and eventually evolved to Delphi (Windows) and Kylix (Linux).
Read this great introduction how to write GOOD programs!
Turbo Pascal may not be the only Pascal compiler running on MSX, it is the best supported one.
The untouched and not installed version(see the Pascal course in MCCM part 1!):
Turbo Pascal 3.01 for CP/M
A version of Turbo Pascal was distributed by Philips. In the package you find:
Manual, Front and Back CoverBelow are scanned images of the front and back covers of the Turbo Pascal 3 manual. Back in those days the manual was the product. The floppy disk placed inside the manual cover along with the license agreement, invitation to join on CompuServe forums and other paper marketing pieces. Click on each image to display a larger version of each cover.
The manual of Turbo Pascal 3.0 (MS-DOS, CP/M-86 and CP/M/MSX-DOS) is also available, thanks to Fred Kraan
A patched and installed version
MSX-2 version of Turbo Pascal 3 Made by MCE aka Frits Hilderink including the GIOS and a PC version!
This is the official distribution placed here with permission of Frits Hilderink!
Turbo Pascal 3.3f