At 10:33 AM +0100 12/3/03, Tom Verhoeff wrote:
Adriaan van Os wrote:
Frank Heckenbach wrote:
I might be a little confused about the Pascal compilers by Apple and/or for Mac, since I've never used one of them myself.
Yes, it is confusing, so I have listed the Pascal compilers for Macintosh that I know of:
I miss the UCSD Pascal system that ran (very well) on the Apple ][. I believe it was based on Wirth's p-system, producing p-code. It had a text-based UI with menus. A typical prompt looked like
Program-name: C(ommand1, C(ommand2, ...:
Because almost all the system software was written in UCSD Pascal as well, the language had been extended with numerous facilities for writing efficient system software. Many of these Pascal extensions have survived in one form or another.
We had a large group here in the Netherlands that did wonderful things with this system on homemade Apple ][ clones. These had been extended with 1 MB RAM disks (lightning fast). There were no hard disks at that time; only the slow 5.25" floppies for your OS, tools, and program and data files. I still have such a machine in my attic, but I have not tried to boot it in a very long time.
Tom Verhoeff
I remember this too; it hasn't been in mind for a long time until you mentioned it. I bought an Apple ][+ (or rather I imported a Taiwanese clone from the factory - you could do that in those days!) as an undergrad student. You mentioning the menu brings back memories... but we had better not start down that track! ;-)
I still have Randell Hyde's book p-Source which shows all the p-code instructions and what they do along with examples of compiled p-code compared to the original Pascal source. I spent some time playing with p-code. Silly kid... (me, that is) There was a book with Apple's ROM code as well if I remember right.
I wish I had never sold that machine. I don't particularly regret selling the IBM XT I bought later, but I wish I'd hung onto the ][+.
Grant