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Turbo Pascal 3 (for DOS & CP/M!) :-)

Turbo Pascal 3 (for DOS & CP/M!) :-)

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CP/M User

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Back of Burke (Guday!), Australia
This would be great Erik, if you can bring in the interest for
this Language to this group. The regular pascal newsgroup
sends me a funny message (whenever I've sent messages
about this language). Although, the Algol, C, APL, Fortran,
Forth, Pascal MT, PL/M, PL/I, <insert ol' language here>
users will want to be in here as well! :)

There maybe also a bunch of Pascal programmers which
may even protest towards Turbo Pascal. Okay, so it's
not standard, but neither's BASIC!

Regards,
CP/M User.
 
Turbo Pascal 3.0 is an excellent little compiler. I had used it for most of my high school projects. Clean, fast, simple, and it fit on a single floppy.

However, over the years I've turned into a C programmer. Pascal seems like programming in a straight-jacket. C lets me do the unnatural things that an OS or middleware programmer needs to do sometimes.

How did the CP/M versions handle graphics? Many of the CP/M machines only had a standard sized text screen, and the graphics capabilities varied wildly.

Slightly off topic, but did Zbasic ever run on CP/M? I used version 3 extensively on a PC, and it was wonderful - very reminiscent of Turbo Pascal 3.0, but obviously BASIC instead. And not a rip-off of TP 3.0, but another good, small, fast compiler.

Ah, the good old days ...
 
"mbbrutman" wrote in message:

> Turbo Pascal 3.0 is an excellent little compiler. I had used it for
> most of my high school projects. Clean, fast, simple, and it fit
> on a single floppy.

True! :)

> However, over the years I've turned into a C programmer.
> Pascal seems like programming in a straight-jacket. C lets
> me do the unnatural things that an OS or middleware
> programmer needs to do sometimes.

No with me. I've been able to use Turbo Pascal 3 under CP/M-86 &
on an 8bit Amstrad to add more functions specific to those machines
into my programming. On the Amstrad, a large base of Firmware
routines can be uncovered (under CP/M) & has allowed me to use
them. So now it seems, I could bring many functions & procedures
on that computer which are available in it's interpreted BASIC to
Turbo Pascal in CP/M which in theory would make it more like
BASIC! :)

I've translated programs from a pascal related website called
SWAG, which uses a lot of interrupt programming & low-level
programming in programs people submit. So I've been able
to bring things like graphical demos a virtual landscape which
use things like VGA displays into CP/M-86!

Turbo Pascal 3.x might be lacking things like Longint, but with
some study of 'toadlong.zip' which demonstrates long integers
in Turbo Pascal 3, it's possible to get something like that in.

The only other query I have in terms of it's restrictions maybe
the speed of the programs. I'll just have to get a computer with
a bit more speed perhaps. Considerning I've got a virtual
landscape working on a 386 @ 16Mhz, I'm pretty proud of that!

> How did the CP/M versions handle graphics? Many of the
> CP/M machines only had a standard sized text screen, and the
> graphics capabilities varied wildly.

I can say that those machines in particular have support for
graphics, though the inbuilt use of graphical routines that
they provide. Obviously, the drawsback of running a program
on a computer which isn't IBM compatable is a problem. The
same goes for the Amstrad CPC computers, the routines
they provide are specific to the machine. Originally, I think
if you wanted some graphical programs working under
CP/M on a variety of machines, they used GSX as a form of
support.

What I've been doing with CP/M-86 on the IBM has been
kinda a bit of the old with a bit of the new. CP/M-86 didn't
know anything about VGA displays when v1.1 came out
in 1983! But VGA supports the mode which mono & CGA
supported. The writing of graphical routines is though the
use of interrupts, since CP/M-86 slightly resembles DOS,
any interrupt which ain't software related would work
under CP/M-86 (on the exception that a couple don't
because of the difference in DOS & CP/M-86!).

> Slightly off topic, but did Zbasic ever run on CP/M? I used version
> 3 extensively on a PC, and it was wonderful - very reminiscent of
> Turbo Pascal 3.0, but obviously BASIC instead. And not a rip-off of
> TP 3.0, but another good, small, fast compiler.

I've heard of it, but I'm not sure. If the source code is available
(perfibly in Turbo Pascal), then I'd be interest in having a look!

But we're lucky to have an early version of Small-C v1.1 on
CP/M-86. It's extremely limited, but I've found ways of
adding some routines to it in the mould of inline assembly
support! :) But maybe some of the Turbo Pascal inline
Machine Code routines (I have) could be written back for it
as well.

> Ah, the good old days ...

Well, you may think I'm nuts for doing this, but what I'm
using isn't too new (it's not like I'm using the latest video
cards & writing demos out of it). VGA has been around
for a while & since I have a 386 laptop, that could perhaps
qualify for here as well, I suppose! :)

Regards.
 
"CP/M User" wrote in message:

Heh!!, it's great to see so many people viewing this & only 3 people have
voted! ;-)

Maybe Turbo Pascal 7 is the order of the day. Still many people try
running it on their Windows XP system & wonder why it ain't workin'

Cheers.
 
ZBasic in CP/M flavor

ZBasic in CP/M flavor

Hi All,
Yes, ZBasic did come in CP/M flavor. I forgot which version I had (I'm pretty sure that it was v3.9) - I can check if anybody is really interested. I bought the 64K version for the Apple ][ (v 3.8 directly from Zedcor) and they said that I qualified for a special of any other version for free - I chose the CP/M version! I think the person was really surprised that I didn't opt for the 128K Apple ][ version, but they sent both Apple 64K and CP/M for the $49.95 price tag! Shortly after that, they sent me the Apple V4.0 upgrade (with a re-styled blue manual, to replace the original purple version with the panther on the cover!) - slick! I still have the original diskettes in my archives. I did aquire Alcor's Multi-BASIC from a friend who thought he could use it but when he went to an IBM PC for his business, he gave it to me - unfortunately, I cannot find the manual - I have an accounting/manufacturing/inventory system in source form in C-BASIC and would like to compile these programs to .COM files that Multi-BASIC makes rather than the darned .INT files from C-BASIC! I know that there's a switch to tell it that the source file is in C-BASIC form (I think it's %CBASIC) but I don't know what the commands are to create CHAIN-able files. [sigh]

Well I've ran off at the keyboard again, sorry about that! Take care all!

Warmest regards!
 
hello there
I have to ay that deal with pascal 3.0 only few days ago.
I have searched a compiler, that will make as much as possible small code.
So, I tried HiSoft Pascal for ZX Spectrum, Free Pascal, all versions of Turbo Pascal for DOS and even Microsoft Quick pascal.
So, I compile my program with Pascal 5.5 - the only compiler that build simple 'hello, world' program in about 1,5 kb of size.
Pascal 3.0 built as far as I remember 3 kb binary(com file), so I didn't use it. By the way com files made with pascal 3.0 are slower than exe files made by pascal 5.5 (I didn't counted it, but runned both programs on a very loaded with calculatings (render) machine, and noticed thatcom file (pascal 3.0) are slower than exe file made with pascal 5.5)

RGDS
 
"norayr" wrote in message:

> hello there
> I have to ay that deal with pascal 3.0 only few days ago.
> I have searched a compiler, that will make as much as
> possible small code.

You should be trying assembly, if you want small code! :)

> So, I tried HiSoft Pascal for ZX Spectrum, Free Pascal,
> all versions of Turbo Pascal for DOS and even Microsoft
> Quick pascal.

> So, I compile my program with Pascal 5.5 - the only
> compiler that build simple 'hello, world' program in
> about 1,5 kb of size.

The problem associated with Turbo Pascal 3.x,
is that when compiling COM files all the routines
which are build in with TP 3 are included, hence
larger files. My simple Hello world programs are
worst in Turbo Pascal 3 for PC-DOS as that has
the most additional features, where's the CP/M-80,
CP/M-86 & MS-DOS versions have smaller COM
files (or in case of CP/M-86 they are CMD files).

Because TP 5.5 can produce smaller files, it's due
to the fact that most of the code is included from
library files & at which TP 5.5 selects the approrate
code which needs to be used, which is one of the
biggest limits in TP 3, because it will just add
whatever you're not using.

> Pascal 3.0 built as far as I remember 3 kb binary
> (com file), so I didn't use it. By the way com files
> made with pascal 3.0 are slower than exe files made
> by pascal 5.5 (I didn't counted it, but runned both
> programs on a very loaded with calculatings (render)
> machine, and noticed thatcom file (pascal 3.0) are
> slower than exe file made with pascal 5.5)

Turbo Pascal 3 has much bigger files around 8,9 or 10
depending on the version you're using.
You're not explaining yourself clearly in terms of what's
faster, the actual compiling of the files or the actual
speed at which the code runs (in those produced COMs).

I would assume the later, because of the extra overlay
which has been included, it takes more time to actually
run (due to the size). However, if you're talking about
more complicated programs where mathathical
problems exist, then TP 5.5 has an edge (as does some
other interpreted languages as I'll discuss further down).
What I found with TP 5.5 is with the inclusion of additional
features such as 'INC(count)' programs much faster than
using the standard 'count:=count+1', so while they do the
same thing, one works faster than the other. I have also
discovered that in the 8bit version of TP 3, to calculate the
COS & SIN of something actually takes more time than to
actually setup an array with the values already in it,
unfortunately the downside to that array is actually going
through the process, particularly when it's a huge one.
My studies into this has shown that when calculating the
COS & SIN in Turbo Pascal 3, it has been seriously slower
than using the interpreted BASIC equivalant on the same
computer. Further research into why it was like this was
because of the BASICs ability to automatically convert
a decimal number into an integer, where's Turbo Pascal
cannot do this & must be told to through the use of
ROUND or TRUNC. At the moment I haven't looked into
seeing if the COS & SIN only work slower on the IBM
versions of TP 3, but since TP 5.5 has the same issues
of automatically converting numbers, I'd say that COS &
SIN would be about the same & that INC is one of the
few things which beats TP 3 hands down.

As for the downside to all of this, while Turbo Pascal 3
isn't the best for figures & handles the task better using
arrays, it's the best thing for doing some Turbo Pascal
programming in CP/M! (unless someone can show that
TP 1 maybe better - certainally it would be for smaller
COMs), TP 5.5 has that disadvantage where it wasn't
available.

Cheers,
CP/M User
 
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