Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!uwmacc!rick From: rick@uwmacc.UUCP (the absurdist) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Is borland abandoning Macintosh? Message-ID: <2042@uwmacc.UUCP> Date: Mon, 30-Nov-87 12:54:38 EST Article-I.D.: uwmacc.2042 Posted: Mon Nov 30 12:54:38 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 3-Dec-87 04:51:07 EST References: <1394@bgsuvax.UUCP> <7576@prls.UUCP> <1674@uqcspe.OZ> Reply-To: rick@unix.macc.wisc.edu.UUCP (The Absurdist) Organization: UW-Madison Academic Computer Center Lines: 27 >In article <7576@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes: >However, to be brief, he was VERY disappointed with compatability >between the two products. I was quite surprised to hear this, since >you would think that the main motivation for doing the port was to give >customers access to that large body of IBM Turbo code. Turbo Pascal for the Mac is a fairly straight implementation of Lisa Pascal; the major changes are (1) additon of a unit number to the header of a UNIT declaration, and (2) some minor changes in the syntax of compiler pseudo comments. Moving between the Lisa and MPW Pascal dialects (both from Apple), Turbo, TML, and LightSpeed is quite trivial. Generally once you have changed the compiler directives and the unit declarations statements the only thing left is that LightSpeed conversions need a rewrite of the initialization code, since they automatically initialize some things that the other 4 compilers leave to be explicitly initialized. IBM Turbo code, as exemplified by a 40-diskette source code library I have access to here, is largely worthless; 90% of it is using tricks involving stuffing values into registers and calling an interrupt, or writing directly into memory locations, etc.; it would be shaky enough on a non-clone MS-DOS machine, let alone on a non-DOS machine. The stuff which qualifies as "Pascal" rather than "Turbo Pascal" generally runs fine. -- Rick Keir -- all the oysters have moved away -- UWisc - Madison "Watch the skies...."