3 ms·

Well my impression is that Turbo Pascal is also like this, no?

• bdcravens 7y ago
  It was approachable. First language I learned was Turbo Pascal, and it inspired me to learn more via QBasic on an old 286 I had been given. (1995 I think)
• mkl 7y ago
  Yes. I went: GW-BASIC (no built-in help, incompatible with most library books, no real editor: hard for a kid to teach themselves from nothing) -> QBasic (Help! Graphics programs that crashed didn't leave you in graphics mode! Proper editor!) -> QuickBasic (bigger programs, compile to .exe) -> Turbo Pascal (help, compile-time errors, programs ran fast in comparison, proper modular code, good editor (great in 6.0), advanced graphics (for the time) totally within reach, and that's where a lot of high-school lunch hours went). Once Windows started to catch on, Visual Basic and Delphi (both had integrated help), then C++ (though I'd done some of that in DOS too, with Turbo C++). Integrated help systems were almost essential before the internet, and Microsoft and Borland did them well.
  • kyriakos 7y ago
    Really cool thing I remember about Turbo Pascal was that you could drop in x86 Assembly right in your Turbo Pascal code and the compiler would take care of it. If you wanted to write a function with better performance you could just use assembly.