Re: pascal system

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <pan.2006.06.03.14.01.44.58288@netscape.net>,
ben yates  <anoneds@netscape.net> wrote:

> On Sat, 03 Jun 2006 12:42:55 +0000, Paul Schlyter wrote:
> 
>> In article <kNOdnWuedvOlOR3ZnZ2dnUVZ_vmdnZ2d@comcast.com>,
>> Alex Freed  <alexf@mirrow.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Paul Schlyter wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Yes - an implementation of UCSD Pascal was integrated in the Apple Pascal
>>>> system.  It was a compiler, IDE, OS, file system -- all integrated.
>>> 
>>> IMHO "bundled" is a better term than "integrated". Now the Turbo Pascal
>>> was integrated. Just like modern development environments with combined
>>> editor and compiler.
>>> 
>>> UCSD Pascal just came with its own OS and incompatible filesystem.
>> 
>> True --- Turbo Pascal didn't integrate its own OS, which was a clear
>> advantage.  To summarize: Turbo Pascal was better than Apple Pascal in
>> almost every respect.  Anyone who can think of even one advantage
>> Apple Pascal had over Turbo Pascal?
> 
> Yes - Turbo Pascal bastardized the standards. UCSD wasn't a strict
> follower, however. But if you compare most UCSD programs vs. Turbo
> programs, many Turbo Pascal programs are mere shells for in-line asm,
> others have non-standard programming constructs, etc.

I know..... to many TP users, TP was merely a somewhat easier way to
write machine code.....

> I don't know about Apple Pascal, but the UCSD I used supported concurrent
> processes, had an assembler (no in-line asm for me!),

....yep, good ol' TLA ("The Last Assembler").  The idea of TLA was to have
a uniform assembler syntax and then have the particular CPU described in an
accompanying data file.  A switch to another CPU would merely require a
corresponding switch of the data file -- the assempler itself (written in
UCSD Pascal of course) wold not need to be replace.  Therefore this was
supposedly The Last Assembler which needed to be written - hence its name: TLA.
Guess what?  Many other asselbmers has been written since then.....

Another, grander, vision among old Apple II software was TLO - "The Last One" -
which was intended to be the last program ever to be written !!!!  The Last One
queried its user about the properties of some administrative program to be
written, and then it output Applesoft Basic code for that program.  After TLO,
no-one would ever have to write another computer program -- just run TLO and
have it write any program you'll ever need for you.....  DUH!!!

> and pretty decent memory management.

I don't agree with that one.....  Apple Pascal lacked the "dispose"
statement and relied only on mark/release for its memory management.
Perhaps you referred to code being swapped in and out of disk?  Yep,
that was nice, and as good as the memory management in e.g. Zork --
that old text based adventure which ran on many computers, among them
the Apple II (both as native Apple II versions amd as the CP/M vesion
which ran fine on Apple II CP/M).  Zork too used "portable object
code", in this case the code was called Z-code.  The adress space
exceeded 16 bits and therefore games could be larger than 64K, also on
8-bit micros.  The game file on the disk was used as a virutal memory.

> Not remembering too many details from my Turbo Pascal
> days, I can't enumerate any more.
> 
> The two reasons I disliked UCSD, which is pretty much the reason for its
> failure, is its slow speed and use of a proprietary file system. Silly,
> since disk formats of the day weren't standardized to allow disk swapping.
> They should've used a system like many Forths of the day used, which was
> blocks on top of the native file system allowing Forth to have access to
> the native file system through block reads or through Forth words that
> utilized the underlying OS. I never _could_ get UCSD to access the
> underlying OS on my system. Had to use cheesy/buggy conversion programs to
> move stuff over.

:-)

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