Category Archives: Languages

Visual Pascal? If Only It Was To Be…

vpBorland International Inc. has begun alpha testing an object-oriented, Pascal-based visual development tool that it plans to launch by year’s end as an alternative to Visual Basic.

The tool, code-named VBK (Visual Basic Killer), is aimed at giving corporate developers a new tool to rapidly build applications and database front ends — a market in which Microsoft Corp.’s Visual Basic has thrived, said sources familiar with the software.

The tool supports Visual Basic VBX controls and features a notebook-style interface similar to Quattro Pro. A future version will include Borland’s database engine, sources said.

VBK works in much the same way as Visual Basic: Users create event-driven programs by

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Classic Programming Languages – How Many Do You Know?

clpJust like the first mainframe computers, the first microcomputers had no language, either. They had too little memory to support any software, so they were programmed in machine language by setting front-panel switches. Micros that had no front panel (like the Southwest Technical Products M6800) were programmed in assembly language through the use of a monitor program contained in ROM. The monitor chip also had a mini-compiler to translate programs into machine language.

Once the thrill of having actually built a working computer wore off, the computer hobbyists wanted to do something with their machines. Soon 2K and 4K memory boards became available, and with them, the possibility of using

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Cross Platform Utilities And C

cpsApplication developers’ heads must spin as they decide which platforms to target. Should they write for DOS, where the vast majority of users remain? Should they write for Windows, where the growth seems to be? How about OS/2, with its wealth of slick APIs and multithreading capabilities? And then there’s the Macintosh … and Windows NT … and Unix …

As these decisions grow more complicated, vendors of development tools are simplifying choices by adding cross-platform support to their utilities.

C++ is where the action is in development tools, and 1992 saw a number of important product releases, especially with respect to cross-platform support.

The market leader is still Borland

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Turbo Pascal Heated Up The Jets

tpAs a replacement for Turbo Pascal Professional 6.0, Borland released Borland Pascal with Objects 7.0, an integrated Pascal environment that runs under both DOS and Windows and is targeted at sophisticated developers who are bumping into the 640K-byte DOS barrier, according to Zach Urlocker, senior product manager in Borland’s Languages Business Unit in Scotts Valley, Calif.

Borland Pascal with Objects can be tapped to create DOS and Windows applications as well as programs that adhere to the DOS Protected Mode Interface (DPMI), an industry specification used to write protected-mode DOS software, Urlocker said.

Borland is providing DPMI support because 40 percent of its 2 million Pascal users are professional developers

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Windows 3.1 – Don’t Miss You Much

wIs it possible for something to be very good for Windows 3.1 yet not at all good for Microsoft? You bet it is. What could that something be? That’s simple: updated Borland language products for Windows 3.1, of course.

Consider, for example, Borland’s new Turbo Pascal for Windows 1.5 that will be introduced next week. Just as surely as it opens the door to a wider range of Windows 3.1 applications, TPWin 1.5 will also be yet another blow to Microsoft’s once-thriving languages product line.

TPWin 1.5 is the latest incarnation of Turbo Pascal, the product that launched Borland into the U.S. software market nearly a decade ago. Turbo Pascal

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Borland Innovated Beyond Anyone

tp1In 1983 Borland changed the face of PC programming with the release of Turbo Pascal 1.0. Before that, languages were expensive, unwieldy, command-line driven affairs which ensured that programming remained the exclusive preserve of programmers. Borland provided an environment which integrated a full-screen editor with a lightning fast compiler at an unbelievably low price; suddenly programming was accessible to ordinary people.

However, programming for Windows has remained entirely within the remit of professional programmers. For a start it was much more complicated than programming for DOS , and the tools required were expensive.

But now Borland has released Turbo Pascal for Windows (TPW) which is not only cheap but makes

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