BORLAND/TURBO PASCAL 7 --- EVERYBODY SHOULD LEARN (Turbo Pascal 7.0 for DOS)

Member Name: suryansu_ray

Product:	Turbo Pascal 7.0 for DOS
Date:	01/01/06 (6370 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You become a powerful scientist, math teacher, engineer and logician. An absorbing lifelong hobby.

Disadvantages: The only disadvantage of Pascal is that you have to learn typing with a keyboard.

A powerful structured programming language like Borland/Turbo Pascal 7 should never be misrepresented as old or outdated. People wrongly compare Pascal with C++. They forget to emphasize that C++ is meant to create other consumer softwares, whereas Pascal is a finished final domestic product to be used for personal computing. If you are an engineer, a mathematics teacher at any level, an accountant, a physicist, a journalist, Pascal is indispensably your personal software. As a mathematics teacher of Delhi University, -- at some other time, if you are interested to listen to me, -- I can write in details how exetensively I have been using Borland's Turbo Pascal 6 and 7 for over a decade. Pascal is purposefully made a high-level language so that it can be actually used as an enduser's programming language. It is a tightly syntaxed structured language in which subprograms and units are completely sealed from outside and not a pin can enter into their privacy. Hence the subroutines are extremely portable.

One will never find a better platform than Borland's Turbo Pascal 7 to learn the philosophy of the so-called Object Oriented Programming (OOP). Besides, TP 7's graphic capabilities are simply amazing. Make programmes to draw graphs of your implicit functions. Make animations. Further, extract sound frequencies to compose your sound signals and music pieces. You can debug your programme, accurately pinpointing the code that is creating the bug. If your programme is rather long, break it into separate include files and unit files. The list of things Borland/Turbo Pascal 7 can do is never-ending.

Pascal should be included in every school syllabus. If the student does not go for software engineering, the Pascal culture will prove very useful in his or her other career.

Speaking the truth loudly, there is nothing that C++ can do but BP/TP Pascal 7 cannot do. Nevertheless, it is awkward to use Pascal to develop another commercial software; similarly it is awkward to use C++ to code day-to-day problems of a math teacher. The staggering power of Borland/Turbo Pascal 7 can be gauged from the following two now out-of-print books written by experts who were directly involved in developing Turbo Pascal 6 and 7:

1. "Turbo Pascal 7: The Complete Reference", Stephen O'Brien and Steven Nameroff, Osborne McGraw-Hill, Berkeley, CA (1993).

2. "PC Magazine Turbo Pascal 6.0--Techniques and Utilities", Neil J. Rubenking, Ziff-Davis Press, Emeryville, CA (1991).

Lastly, I must make some comments about the so-called "oldness" and "outdatedness" of Pascal. It is not Pascal which has become old; it is the operating system DOS which has been deliberately relegated to the background. Pascal is DOS-based. It is highly expensive for a developer to convert a DOS-based software into a Windows-based software and maintain a customer service indefinitely. Nevertheless, both my Borland Pascal 7 and Borland's Turbo Pascal 7 are running finely in my highspeed Pentium 4 processor even in Windows 98 and XP. Using the DOS Prompt, i.e. the Command Prompt, I go to the black screen and recall the executive files bp.exe for BP7 or tpx.exe for TP7. In a highspeed computer one has been facing the difficulty with the CRT unit, without which the environment becomes miserable. Many unnecessary and dangerous patch files are suggested. However, I have procured a simple solution of the problem. I am writing below a small unit called Fdelay.pas, which is written in the assembly language. Just copy this file in your working directory, bring it onto the Pascal IDE and compile it. The compiled file will automatically call itself Fdelay.tpu. Please see that this tpu file is saved in your working directory. Thereafter, in all your programs simply write: USES Fdelay, Crt; writing Fdelay before Crt. All your problems are gone! There will be no "Run time error 200 : division by 0".---
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Unit Fdelay; { Place this before CRT. Real mode only }
interface
const dfix:word=1; { call delay() dfix times }

implementation
uses dos;

procedure oldints; assembler; { "variables" in the code segment }
asm dd 0,0 end;
Procedure error;
begin
runerror(200);
End;

Procedure Int0; assembler;
asm
cmp cx,55 { If CX<>55 we are at some other point }
je @ok
sti
call error
@ok:
shr dx,1 { divide dx:ax by 2 }
rcr ax,1
shl Dfix,1 { multiply Dfix by 2 }
iret { return to the DIV (286+) }
end;

{ Int21h handler removes the int0 handler (as well as itself) from
the memory when CtrlBreak vector is set by CRT right after
calculating the delay counter. Note DS does NOT point to the data
segment when this is called }

Procedure Int21h; assembler;
asm
cmp ax,$251B
jne @old { Not setint 1Bh? }
push es; push si; push di
mov si,offset oldints
xor di,di
mov es,di
cld
segcs; movsw
segcs; movsw { restore int 0 }
mov di,$21*4
segcs; movsw { restore int 21h }
segcs; movsw
pop di; pop si; pop es
@old: db $2e,$ff,$2e { jmp far indirect cs:[oldints+4] }
dw offset oldints+4
end;

type tr=record int0,int21:pointer; End;
pr=^tr;

begin
GetIntVec(0,pr(@oldints)^.int0);
GetIntVec($21,pr(@oldints)^.int21);
SetIntVec(0,@int0);
SetIntVec($21,@int21h);
end.

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At this moment, I could not find the source from where I got this effective and harmless unit. Next time I will surely acknowledge my debt to the source.

Dr. Suryansu Ray
suryansuray@yahoo.com

Summary: Pascal is indispensable for engineers, math professors, technicians, scientists and logicians.

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