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The OP says that 8-bit CPUs couldn't handle Pascal well The 6502 might not have been able to handle Pascal well, but Borland Turbo Pascal for CP/M (z80, 8080,
by kjs3 1y ago
The OP says that 8-bit CPUs couldn't handle Pascal well
The 6502 might not have been able to handle Pascal well, but Borland Turbo Pascal for CP/M (z80, 8080, etc) worked very, very well. It was also released in 1983 or so, but dunno whether it or Factor was 'first'.
- guenthert 1y agoYes, Turbo Pascal was awesome and quite possibly the best programming environment for the Z80. The register-starved 6502 however relies on zero-page addressing for efficient code, that's difficult to exploit in compilers for high level languages (and hence why you don't see that in general purpose CPUs anymore). One way around that is to compile to a byte code which is then interpreted (e.g. BCPL, UCSD Pascal).
- wduquette 1y agoAnd in fact I eventually went from Apple Pascal to Turbo Pascal on a Kaypro 4 running CP/M-80. It was like coming home.