#! rnews 46652 Path: news.demon.co.uk!mutlu.news.demon.net!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!demon!newspeer.monmouth.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: "Robert AH Prins" Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal.borland Subject: [FAQ] mini-FAQ V1.68 - essential reading for those new to the newsgroup Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2006 00:26:04 -0000 Lines: 1121 Message-ID: <44iaknF2ahisU1@individual.net> X-Trace: individual.net oQ23Y7WSfIoGghCekqkUGwNoHzbE1gAttBEOr4EsBAqxal0tn9 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2180 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original Xref: news.demon.co.uk comp.lang.pascal.borland:7269 Subject: CLPB Mini FAQ Archive-name: pascal/borland-minifaq Posting-Frequency: Every week Last-modified: 2006-02-04 Version: 1.68 This document is (in general) posted every week as an aid to new readers of these Newsgroups. It provides background knowledge of the group, answers to the most frequently asked questions, a listing of Pascal resources and netiquette in posting to the groups. Please do take the time to read through this information. Changes to the FAQ, giving a new version number will have a # in the first column for the life of the version. ********************************************************************** This is the comp.lang.pascal.borland Mini-FAQ, created by Tom Wheeley. It was maintained by Chris Mathews until Feb 1998 and by Pedt Scragg until February 2003. It's currently maintained by Robert AH Prins . You can avoid seeing this Mini-FAQ again by killfiling on '[FAQ] mini-FAQ V1.' _and_ '- essential reading for those new to the newsgroup' ********************************************************************** Contents: 1 What is comp.lang.pascal.borland? 1.1 History of the Group 1.2 Posting Guidelines 2 Where can I find {more?} Information - Pascal FAQ's? 2.1 FTP sites 2.2 Notable sources of information 2.3 Uploading your masterpieces to an FTP site 3 Very Frequently Asked Questions. 3.1 Pointers to info for assorted questions 3.2 Request for answers 4 Compiler and unit downloads 4.1 Borland compilers for download 4.2 Replacement units for download 4.2.1 Replacement SYSTEM units available for download 4.2.2 Replacement CRT units available for download 4.2.3 Replacement OVERLAY unit for download 4.2.4 Emulator sources for download APPENDIX A - FTP site mirrors APPENDIX B - Credits ********************************************************************** 1. What is comp.lang.pascal.borland? ********************************************************************** This is the Usenet newsgroup for discussion on Borland Pascal, Turbo Pascal and Turbo Pascal for Windows systems. All users are welcome and this group is not moderated. In order to keep Usenet confusion down, we request that you post only questions or discussions concerning Pascal on the Borland Pascal compilers. You might also be interested in "what are the differences between Borland/Delphi/Kylix languages and ISO 7185 standard Pascal", at: http://www.moorecad.com/standardpascal/ansiiso.faq Please note that Delphi does not belong in this group. There are many groups for Delphi discussion. Until the beginning of March 2005, Prof. Timo Salmi used to post a weekly FAQ regarding the newsgroup reorganization of comp.lang.pascal.*. The contents of this FAQ can be found as the answer to Q 76 in ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsfaqp.zip Also there is the Turbovision group described as "Borland's text application libraries." It is C-biased, but Pascal does get a look-in: comp.os.msdos.programmer.turbovision Please do not post to the obsolete groups: comp.lang.pascal comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components ********************************************************************** 1.1 History of the Group ********************************************************************** comp.lang.pascal.borland was created by popular vote on 12 June 1995. Historical information on this and other Usenet Pascal newsgroups is available from: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/pasgroup.zip ********************************************************************** 1.2 Posting Guidelines ********************************************************************** a) "A problem well stated is a problem half solved" Charles F. Kettering b) Put as much information as you can in the subject line. *Subjects like "help me" or "question about Pascal" are silly.* Also note that some newsreaders truncate the subject line early. c) If you have used one of the RTE200 patches. You are unlikely to get any useful help unless you tell us: whose patch; from where; BP/TP; Version Number; Real or Protected Mode; DOS/Win3/Win9x/?; and *exactly* what the symptoms were and what the output was. d) Usually, it will be sufficient to post to a single one of the Pascal groups. But if you ever need to post to more than one group, be sure to use a single cross-posted article rather than multiple postings. e) Please do not request the answer to your question solely via email! Someone else will be interested and it is only polite to the readers of this newsgroup. Remember also that public replies are subject to peer review in case corrections and/or additions are needed. f) A "Thank you" after an answer that solved your query is a lot nicer than a TIA. Do you ever give a TIA in real life? g) We will not do your homework for you! We will, however, give advice on specific topics and look at code that you have a problem with. Show us what you have done already and pointers and fixes will be forthcoming. Don't just post your assignment! h) Be aware of limits. Try to keep your posting text lines to 72 characters or FEWER. If you use more, your posts may well look messy when quoted. i) Please ignore trolls who post or crosspost articles of an inflammatory nature deliberately to try and cause mischief for the group. Watch out for Follow-up: headers set to a different group - your reply then goes to the other group and not comp.lang.pascal.borland. j) *Binaries must NOT be posted to this group.* Nor MIME Attachments. (Especially nasty are those mailers which convert '=' to '=3D', a very bad thing to do to *any* Pascal source code.) If you are wondering *why* binaries are banned, read this: http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/nobin.html The rest of that very useful FAQ is worth a read also. You can find it here: http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html If you want to distribute binaries or large source files then you could upload it to your own web site or to one of the FTP sites. See the section 'Uploading your masterpieces to an FTP site'. k) Do not post material that is not already in the public domain, unless you have permission from the owner. If in doubt, quote part of it and provide a link to the original. l) Expressly forbidden is posting of any commercial material, for example Turbo Pascal 7, or even just GRAPH.TPU. *This is illegal* Do not even ask for these. Contact Borland if you have a problem. Borland have released TP V1, V3.02 and V.5.5 for download. See http://community.borland.com/museum/ - you may have to register. m) Please, when replying to an article, only quote *as much as needed* to show the context of your answer. n) Post your comments or answer *below* the previous poster's text as this is both basic Netiquette and a valuable aid to keep track of the thread. o) When posting problem code, please keep to the problem areas and their context *and* show Var and Type declarations that are involved. p) Please indent your code, it may make postings a fraction bigger, but it will increase the readability by an order of magnitude! One indenter can be found on John Stockton's site, http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/clean-tp.pas John's program only changes indentation, nothing else! Other fuller featured pretty-printers are available on Garbo: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/goldies/bp7sb101.zip ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/bp7sb104.zip ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/epb256.zip ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/tpbeaut.zip For on-the-fly beautification of your Pascal programs and use of higher resolutions than those offered as standard (up to 132x60), you may want to have a look at Alexander Petrosyan's "Borland Pascal Autocorrector". It's here: http://paf.design.ru/bpr.html q) Do *NOT* post in HTML format. Make sure you post only plain text. r) Do *NOT* add source code using an attachment - merge your source into the text of the article you are posting. s) Please do not post source code that runs into many hundreds or thousands of lines of code, the place for such code is on the Web or at an FTP site. t) Please note some articles are cross-posted to borland.public.turbopascal The Borland newsgroups are _not_ part of Usenet and do not accept postings from outside the borland.* hierarchy. If your ISP provides access to Borland newgroups, consider it read-only and only reply through the official Borland news server! More info about Borland newsgroups can be found at http://www.borland.com/newsgroups/guide.html u) If you want to post a follow-up via groups.google.com, don't use the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on "show options" at the top of the article, then click on the "Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson ********************************************************************** 2. Where can I find more information? ********************************************************************** Pascal FAQs: - The infamous, ubiquitous, mandatory and downright useful Timo Salmi's 'Common Turbo Pascal Questions and Timo's answers' is available at ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsfaqp.zip Note that this runs to over 150 questions and answers and a list of Question Titles is posted monthly to comp.lang.pascal.borland Be aware that it was last updated way back in January 2000... - Jon Shemitz' original comp.lang.pascal FAQ http://www.midnightbeach.com/jon/pubs/clp-faq.htm - Pascal Turbo Vision FAQ http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/pasfhome.html (see WWW section) A copy of this (not-updated-since-1995) FAQ can be found on the pages of Dr John Stockton http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/oldpfaqs/pastvfaq.txt Learning Pascal - If you are beginning Pascal, or want to learn some new techniques, you could do far worse than take a look at Glenn Grotzinger's TP Tutorial, in section 2.2 ********************************************************************** 2.1 FTP sites: See Appendix A for *some* mirrors ********************************************************************** 'Garbo' The primary Turbo Pascal source/unit site. ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ {turbopa* directories} http://garbo.uwasa.fi/ 'Oulu' Lots of files related to game (and demo?) programming. ftp://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/msdos/programming/ 'Simtel' Enormous MS-DOS archive ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet http://www.simtel.net/simtel.net/ 'Borland' Borland's Web site ftp://ftp.borland.com/ http://www.borland.com/index.html TV site Turbovision source/applications ? The old Turbo Vision site is gone, try Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22turbo-vision%22 These may be referred to by the name in the left hand column, both in this FAQ and on the newsgroup. For Simtel and Garbo at least, the contents of the primary site are mirrored in a number of locations throughout the world. Please use a mirror site close to you if possible both to save load on the primary site and to keep the distance between you and the download site as short as possible. Info on Garbo and Simtel mirrors is in Appendix A. ********************************************************************** 2.2 WWW sites ********************************************************************** If you have a Web site concentrating on Pascal (esp. Borland), then why not get it added to the list in the FAQ? Just send the URL and # a short description to me, . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Pascal Central http://pascal-central.com/ The intent of Pascal Central is to provide the Pascal community one place to obtain Pascal technical information, Pascal source code and Pascal-related internet links. Mainly Pascal for the MAC. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Franz Glaser's TP Links http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2926/tp.html Franz Glaser has a very large number of resources available to Pascal programmers available from the links page listed. Includes a full set of resources for the RunError 200 problem, which is a VFAQ in clpb. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * SWAG. See http://www.gdsoft.com/swag/swag.html Available from Garbo and Simtel directory turbopas/ get swaga-c.zip...swags-z.zip + swag.zip. A free archive of Turbo Pascal code, produced by the 'Source Ware Archival Group'. Note that the download is ~5Mb Many people would consider SWAG essential before posting here! The last SWAG Archive update SWAG9711.ZIP contains a new file: LASTSWAG.TXT. They've decided to cease the current distribution and move to a web-based library concentrating on Delphi. The whole archive is now available on-line in HTML format at http://www.bsdg.org/swag/index.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coders Knowledge Base http://www.netalive.org/forums/programming Aims to be the successor to SWAG but information quality is quite variable at the present time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralf Brown's Interrupt List (Also known as RBIL) The man himself: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/ralf/pub/WWW/files.html ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter61a.zip inter61a.zip x86/MS-DOS Interrupt List, 1/4, Ralf Brown, impressive ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter61b.zip inter61b.zip x86/MS-DOS Interrupt List, 2/4, Ralf Brown, impressive ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter61c.zip inter61c.zip x86/MS-DOS Interrupt List, 3/4, Ralf Brown, impressive ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter61d.zip inter61d.zip x86/MS-DOS Interrupt List, 4/4, Ralf Brown, impressive ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter61e.zip inter61e.zip Utility programs/source code for interrupt list, R.Brown ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter61f.zip inter61f.zip WinHelp conversion programs for interrupt list, R.Brown An on-line fully-indexed HTML version can be found here: http://www.ctyme.com/rbrown.htm 284031 Apr 15 1991 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/helppc21.zip helppc21.zip Advanced Programmer's Quick Reference Utility (good) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The PCGPE 'PC Games Programmers Encyclopaedia' ftp://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/msdos/programming/gpe/pcgpe10.zip ftp://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/msdos/programming/gpe/00index.htmll Version 1 contains lots of information on interfacing with games related hardware - Mouse, joystick, Sound Cards, VGA specs. Useful software techniques include BSP trees, 3d algorithms, a starfield sim and fire effects. gfx file formats included too. Includes Assembly and VGA tutorials by Asphyxia and VLA. Thankfully, the author is a Pascal aficionado and so most of the code is in Pascal or Pascal-style pseudocode. It also focusses on techniques, rather than doling out code or units, aiding understanding. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Glenn Grotzinger's Turbo Pascal Tutor ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/tptutr11.zip This tutor was written and posted to the comp.lang.pascal.borland newsgroup. It contains tutorials, exercises and answers for all the major areas in Turbo Pascal and most of the niches too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- About.Com Pascal Programming Guide, Amit Chattopadhyay http://search.about.com/fullsearch.htm?terms=pascal&IAM=URL_pascal A fairly comprehensive portal site to popular Pascal source code, documents, tutorials and programming resources. Features weekly articles, chat area and discussion forum. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Pascal.Sources.Ru, Valery Votintsev http://pascal.sources.ru/ A big _RUSSIAN_ language site with a very large amount of Pascal material, including a Russian version of SWAG, which contains a substantial number of snippets that are not in SWAG. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bug Lists Believe it or not, your favourite Borland products are not 100% perfect. Turbo Pascal 6 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopa6/tp6bugs7.zip Borland Pascal 7 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbspec/bp7bugs2.zip TurboVision (possibly newer versions of Brad Williams's TV bug list) ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbovis/tvbugs31.zip ********************************************************************** 2.3 Uploading your masterpieces to an FTP site ********************************************************************** If you upload your splendid TPU, program or source code, then it doesn't clutter up the newsgroup and will be publicly available for longer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Garbo Make sure you get these files: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPLOAD.TXT (Info on uploading) ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPTEXT.TXT (Questionnaire to fill in) And remember to send an e-mailed announcement! If you upload a unit, then you *must* also send a small demonstration source program which uses your unit. You do not have to send the actual source to your unit if you do not wish to. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Simtel Can authors of ShareWare, FreeWare and Public Domain programs upload their programs to Simtel? Yes. For details send e-mail to listserv@Simtel.Net with this command in the body of the message: get upload.info ---------------------------------------------------------------------- More could well follow. There are {nearly!} always helpful pointers at other ftp sites saying what you should do. If in doubt, there may be a .message in an incoming directory or you could politely mail the site. ********************************************************************** 3. Very Frequently Asked Questions. ********************************************************************** Why do fast CPUs (Celeron, Pentium II and >200MHz) give problems with Crt.Delay? A problem may occur with a PP-200 (or better) CPU in that Runtime Error 200 is generated in the start-up code of the CRT unit. This is caused by division of a large number by 55 whose result won't fit into a 16 bit register; the CPU generates an 'overflow' exception/ interrupt which is interpreted by the system library as "divide by zero" exception/interrupt. See Timo Salmi's FAQ #124 for details. See Section 4.2 for replacement CRT units available for download. Frank Heckenbach's remedy, for TP/BP 7.00/7.01, is available at http://fjf.gnu.de/bp-progs.html#NewDelay Or Roger Donais's remedy : Those without source, compiling DOS real mode programs may find RDELAY.ZIP useful ftp://ftp.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/rdelay10.zip It contains source for a Turbo 4.0 through 7.0 compatible unit designed to prevent the "Divide by 0" error encountered on fast machines. Osmo Ronkanen has produced a Loader program for those programs that cannot be patched. His newsgroup posting is available from ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopa7/tfix.zip There was a related problem in earlier TP version when the initialisation code calibrated the delay to be too short without generating an error. Frank Heckenbach's page has a fix and also see Timo Salmi's FAQ, article #67. The replacement CRT units from Pedt Scragg and Robert Prins also address the problems with the incorrect delay on processors >200MHz for TP V5.0, V5.5 and V6. Franz Glaser has collected a large number of patches for this and they can be found via http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2926/tp.html Andreas Bauer has produced a patch for an executable program. Available from ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopa7/tppatch.zip This program can be installed as a tool in the Pascal IDE: ~B~auer's TPPATCH / TPPATCH / $EXENAME You can check by compiling to disk and running a program using Alt-R R that uses a non-fixed CRT unit. After the RTE200, use Alt-T B then run the program again - the error will be fixed. Further discussions of timing and delays can be found in Prof. Salmi's TurboPascal FAQ, in Kris Heidenstrom's Timing FAQ, ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/pctim003.zip in the newsgroup comp.lang.pascal.borland - *read previous posts first*, and at http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/pas-wait.htm#Delay There has been a tentative suggestion that >450MHz CPU's could give problems with *some* of the fixes available. This seems to be, at the time of writing, affecting the programs that have used c't magazine fix and related ones which patched the code to set the divisor to 126 instead of 55. C't have now released a new patch that will work above 450MHz. Obtainable from ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/ctbppat.zip If you do use a fix for this error which does not work then please post *which* fix with the file datestamp and place obtained, your CPU / OS / Error Message returned. Frank Heckenbach's fix is provided with the French TP7.01 free download. The same problem occurs with the TurboPower OpCrt & TpCrt units. The patches that used to be available on their late ftp site have been put onto SourceForge. The URL is http://sourceforge.net/projects/tpopro/ and you need to look for bug #955482. (At this moment it is the only bug report) The patches are in a (Win)RAR archive. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Can I use Long File Names in Turbo Pascal? Yes. There are units and source code available for dealing with long file names in Turbo Pascal when the program is running in a Win95/98 DOS box. A full implementation is at ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbspec/dos70p20.zip # Also look at the drop-in replacement by Andreas Killer at # ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopa7/lfn110.zip One caveat: be wary of mixing LFN files and 8.3 filename.ext - three files called "pascal source" "pascal file" and "pascal text" would be rendered as "pascal~1" "pascal~2" and "pascal~3". If you delete "pascal file/pascal~2" and then copy the directory then "pascal text" would have a new short name of "pascal~2" NOT "pascal~3" and you program may be referring to "pascal~3" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- How do I make EXE files with Turbo Pascal? In Turbo Pascal, in the compile menu, make sure that the COMPILE TO option is set to COMPILE TO DISK. When you compile, make or build your program then you will create the file XXX.EXE, where XXX is the name of your .PAS file. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Will Delphi V2/3/4/5/6/7/.net/D2005 do DOS programs as well as Windows? Delphi V2 and later are for Windows 9x and Windows NT/XP. They are not DOS products. They can create 32-bit console mode apps, but they will not create DOS apps. If you want DOS apps from a Delphi Product then Delphi V1 can do them with some work on the RTL. See http://www.pedt.demon.co.uk/usenet/ DCC32 -cc program.pas is worth trying on some BP/TP programs mainly computational in nature. There is also wdosx, a winapi emulating dos-extender. Afaik this also works for 32-bits Delphi's. [MvdV] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Is there a Borland Pascal Mailing list? No, there is not. There is a mailing list for Virtual Pascal (see below) on Yahoo. Read access is here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vpascal/ The old Topica list is still readable at http://www.topica.com/lists/virtualpascal/read ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Is it possible to 'decompile' Pascal EXEs or TPUs? No. Too much information is lost in the compiling process. For a more detailed explanation see Prof. Timo Salmi's FAQ. It is possible to get a *reasonable* disassembly to assembly language only - try http://www.datarescue.com/idabase/ The FLIRT technology that comes with IDA will identify most routines of the _original_ Borland RTLs. It will 'miss' interrupt routines, but due to its interactive nature, these can be added very easily. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- What are the Borland Pascal Products? In essence, Borland Pascal was the 'professional' product, whilst the Turbo Pascals are 'hobbyist' products. Current Versions are (excluding fixes): Turbo Pascal 7 (Dos) Turbo Pascal for Windows 1.5 (Win) Discontinued versions Borland Pascal 7 (DOS, WIN 3.1, Pmode) Borland Pascal can do everything that both Turbo Pascals can do, plus: . Compile for 16 bit DOS Protected mode (less memory constraints) . Full Run Time Library Source code . Lots of assorted debugging and programming tools There was an update to TP and BP to v7.01, but this is no longer available. V7.01 still has VER70 defined. TP7 is still available but TPW and BP have been discontinued. You could try http://www.emsps.com/oldtools/borland.htm for the possibilities of obtaining a used copy of the various versions of the Pascal compilers produced by Borland. You may also find copies of BP7 for sale on Ebay at http://www.ebay.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Are there any freeware Pascal compilers? - FPC Pascal # Free Pascal, now (2005-12-08) at version 2.0.2, is a compiler for # 32-bit and 64-bit CPU architectures such as AMD 32/64 bit, Intel # 32/64 bit, SPARC, PowerPC (32 bit) and Intel ARM. It is language # compatible to Turbo Pascal, Delphi (till version 7), and partly # Metrowerks Pascal. It supports many operating systems: Dos, Linux, # Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD, Novell Netware, Mac OS # classic, Mac OS X and MorphOS. It comes with a cross-platform Run-Time Library, many interfaces to existing libraries, and a large set of non-visual classes in the Free Component Library. Last but not least, a text-mode IDE exists on various platforms, and FPC comes with 1800 pages of documentation. The compiler is licensed under the GNU General Public License. The Run-Time code is licensed under a modified version of the Library General Public License, which allows to use it in a commercial application. Comes with full Pascal source and compiles itself. http://www.freepascal.org/ - GNU Pascal GNU Pascal is a portable 32/64 bit compiler system. It supports the language of Borland Pascal V7 as well as ISO Standard Pascal, a large subset of ISO Extended Pascal and other extensions (see http://www.gnu-pascal.de/gpc/h-index.html GNU Pascal is part of the GNU family of compilers, runs on all platforms supported by GNU C, including DOS, OS/2 and MS-Windows 9x/NT, Linux, *BSD and other Unix-compatible systems and can cross- compile between these platforms. Full C source and precompiled binaries for several platforms are available from: http://www.gnu-pascal.de/current/ (Sources) http://www.gnu-pascal.de/binary/ (Binaries) There is a GNU Pascal mailing list, gpc@gnu.de. To subscribe, write an email with the body "subscribe gpc your@email.address" to the list robot, gpc-request@gnu.de. - TMT Pascal TMT Pascal, now at Version 5.00, is a 32-bit compiler with Turbo Pascal syntax and is quite compatible with Turbo Pascal. TMT Pascal is available from http://www.tmt.com/ - Virtual Pascal Virtual Pascal, now at Release V2.1 is free. It fully supports DOS and Delphi plus Turbo Vision has been ported to 32 bits. There is incomplete support for (x86 architecture only) Linux. http://www.vpascal.com/ On 22 August 2003 Allan Mertner made the modified-for-VP sources of TurboPower's Object Professional libraries available on the VP site. Legal uncertainties have led to their removal. On 24 August 2003 Allan Mertner announced that he is looking into Open Sourcing the compiler. More info and discussion about this can be found on the Virtual Pascal mailing list, which is archived on Topica, http://www.topica.com/lists/virtualpascal/read A direct link to the post that kicked off the discussion is http://www.topica.com/lists/virtualpascal/read?sort=d&start=2665 On 3 April 2005, Allan Mertner announced the death of Virtual Pascal. He will continue to run vpascal.com for "a few more years", but development will cease - the main reason for doing so is the fact that the compiler is written in assembler and it cannot realistically be changed to add new features. Due to copyright restrictions, the source will not be made available. See Also Section 4 on Borland's release of TP compilers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- How should I unsubscribe from the INFO-PASCAL mailing list? Send the message "unsubscribe INFO-PASCAL" to mailto:info-pascal-request@brl.mil Please do not send such requests (or others) to info-Pascal@brl.mil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- How to use run-time checks? The Borland compilers can be set up to trap a substantial number of Run-time errors. In the early stages of program development it is advisable to enable _ALL_ error-checking options, i.e. - $I+ to detect I/O errors - $Q+ to detect overflows (BP/TP7 only) - $R+ to generate range-checking code - $S+ to detect stack overflows - $T+ to enable type-checked pointers - $V+ to enable strict checking of Var-strings The $T+ option is a _compile-time_ error-check. It does not carry any run-time overheads! Using all of them will in many cases enable you to find problems without having to resort to the newsgroup. Once a program runs correctly, even with input no sensible user would ever enter, you might want to disable all error-checking, with the possible exception of I/O checking. However, the high clock frequencies of todays CPUs might make the resulting reduction in execution time minimal. As an alternative, it might be advantageous to put fully debugged, well tested and frequently executed code into a separate unit that is compiled without any error-checking. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- How to use Random/Randomize? The Randomize procedure is used to initialize the seed of the random number generator (RNG) with a value derived from the system time. It should only be called once, at the very start of a program. Calling it more frequently, especially in loops on fast CPUs, may result in it being re-seeded with the same seed on many iterations, which in turn results in the Random() function producing the same 'random' number over and over again! ********************************************************************** 3.1 Pointers to info for assorted questions ********************************************************************** This section attempts to provide pointers to help and resources for some of the other VFAQ's. Any assistance to compile a fuller list will be gratefully received. Cursor blink problem in Win95 after exiting BPW IDE ftp://ftp.inprise.com/pub/otherprod/devsupport/misc/tdsvga.zip Standalone debugger and profiler do not work under Win95 File above and use TDWINTH.DLL instead of TDWIN.DLL Can I use truetype or other BGI fonts with BP7 http://www.freetype.org/ http://www.xs4all.nl/~remcodek/fontpage.html Where can I find source code for ZIP files http://website.lineone.net/~african_chief/ Where can I find a replacement for BGI graphics http://crossfire-designs.de/showpage.php?lang=en&what=sourcecode - see GrafX Where can I find a unit to play through a Soundblaster Card http://crossfire-designs.de/showpage.php?lang=en&what=sourcecode - see SoundLib How can I link C code into my Turbo Pascal Program http://www.pedt.demon.co.uk/usenet/c-in-tp.htm My computer has more than 64Mb of memory and BP7 will not work Add NOVCPI to the DEVICE=EMM386.EXE line in config.sys, config.dos and config.win files in the root directory of your boot drive. I'm still using Windows 3.1x and TDW has stopped working http://www.pedt.demon.co.uk/usenet/ctl.zip My mouse does not work in the IDE under Windows 2000 Windows 2000 has cut and paste for DOS boxes and this feature is enabled by default. Right click the top of your DOS Box, look for the 'Edit Options' and uncheck 'QuickEdit Mode' and 'Insert Mode' My protected mode Turbo Vision programs crash with Runtime Error 216 Windows NT4, Windows 2000 and Windows XP programs have problems with 16 bit far callbacks for the mouse handler. Recompile drivers.pas to use polling instead of being interrupt driven. Copy of the fixed drivers.pas http://www.pedt.demon.co.uk/usenet/drivers.zip The problem is also present in 32-bit land. ********************************************************************** 3.2 Request for answers ********************************************************************** - There seems to be reliable evidence that running BP on very fast P4 Windows XP systems causes problems (other than RTE 200). Can anyone give any clues as to the source of this problem. ********************************************************************** 4 Compiler and unit downloads ********************************************************************** 4.1 Borland compilers for download ********************************************************************** Borland has placed three older versions - V1.0, V3.02 and V5.5 of the Turbo Pascal compilers on the Internet for download at http://community.borland.com/museum/ Note: you must have 'cookies' enabled in your browser to get past the Anonymous LogIn. You *may* get directly to the download area by trying http://community.borland.com/museum/borland/software/ As regards any licensing issues, Borland have stated "Since the software is old, you can do whatever you want with it. You can freely distribute the executable version of programs that you develop." You can now also download TP7.01 from the French Inprise site http://www.inprise.fr/download/compilateurs/ This inprise.fr address appears and disappears so may not be available. Note: if you have the English TP7.00 then you can download this version to get the bug fixes. You can swap the *.tph help files over from the English version as they will work. The older *.hlp files do not work with Version 7. Please do not ask for someone to send you the V7 English help as this is not allowed by Borland. Brief highlights of the compilers [V3.02 is bug fixed version of V3.0 and V7.01 is bug fixed version of V7.0] TP V1.0: produces .com files, 64K maximum for code, data and stack but you can use the heap for variables. TP V3.0: produces .com files, 64K each for code, data and stack. Heap can be used. Implements overlays but careful planning needed to avoid thrashing the disk. [Hint: Use a RAMdisk] TP V5.5: produces .exe files, 64K each for code, any unit, data and stack. Heap can be used. Implements decent overlay manager. First TP that can use OOP [Object Orientated Programming]. Users of this version who need the Delay procedure should read the notes about RTE200 in Section 3. TP V7.0: OOP plus Turbo Vision and inline assembly language available. Users of this version should read the notes about RTE200 in Section 3. ********************************************************************** 4.2 Replacement units for download ********************************************************************** Borland made the source of the Run-Time Library (RTL) of its later products available to the end user, either for an additional fee or, in the case of BP7, as a "bonus" disk. Using the source it was theoretically possible to write improved units. ********************************************************************** 4.2.1 Replacement SYSTEM units for download ********************************************************************** At the moment there are FIVE of them available on Garbo. They are: - for TP 5.5: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopa45/syst55c.zip by James LeMay - for TP6: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopa6/sys60a.zip by James LeMay ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopa6/tpl60n19.zip by Norbert Juffa - for TP/BP7: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopa7/bpl70n16.zip by Norbert Juffa ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopa7/bpl70v20.zip by Robert AH Prins The units by James LeMay are just faster, Norbert Juffa's units also have an increased smart-link granularity because he split up most of the original sources into several parts. However, most notable about the Norbert Juffa libraries is the greatly improved 6-byte real arithmetic, which is now as IEEE-754 compliant as possible within the restrictions of the format. Needlessly to say, Norbert's SYSTEM units are also substantially faster than Borlands original versions. The unit by Robert Prins is based upon Norbert Juffa's code, but it has been enhanced significantly. A few of the major changes are: - it is based on the BP 7.01 RTL - it requires a 32-bit CPU and a 387 class FPU if FPU datatypes are used - the code has been made Pentium+ friendlier by replacing most of the slower CICS type instructions by their RISC type equivalents - the code is even more smart-link friendly - both the real (TURBO.TPL) and DPMI (TPP.TPL) libraries include a non-RTE200 smartlink-friendly CRT unit - both contain a much more smartlink-friendly DOS unit (all original get/set routines have been broken in two) - the FPU based Trunc, Int and Round functions were made re-entrant There is an additional very small "SYSTEM" unit available for BP7, but it is stripped down to such an extent that, to quote the author "... you can't use all the features that the standard RTL has." The name of the archive is BPC-TRTL.ZIP and using Google you should have no trouble finding a copy. Here's an incomplete list of removed features: - All System unit procedures, such as WriteLn - All runtime error checks (you have to use {$R-,S-,Q-,I-} mode) - Return codes (ignore the runtime error messages that IDE shows) - Floating-point data types (you have to use {$N-,E-} mode) - Heap manager (allocate memory using DOS calls) - String handling routines (including the + operation) + Some of the LongInt operations: *, /, shr, shl (they still work with Integer) + Large variable assignments (that involved a procedure call) Also, note that you can't compile programs with debug information for standalone debugging. However, you can use the integrated debugger, or you can compile your program with the standard RTL for debugging (and use TinyRTL after the bugs are fixed). Don't forget to save your program before you compile it! The compiler crashes with an internal error if you occasionally use some of the removed features. ********************************************************************** 4.2.2 Replacement CRT units for download ********************************************************************** Following work on a replacement CRT unit to primarily fix the RTE200 bug in T/BP7, two replacement CRT units are now completed. CRT units are included for TP V5, 5.5, 6.0 and 7.0x including protected mode units for BP7.0x. Pedt Scragg's ZIP file also includes precompiled units for Delphi 1. Robert Prins' unit contains all .OBJ files so that users of D1 can roll their own. This unit is included in BPL70V20.ZIP. The replacement CRT units also include code to allow use of extended keys such as F11 and F12 with ReadKey and, if using other than 40x25 text mode or 80x25,43,50 text mode should not reset text screen to 80x25. Be aware that the unit by Robert Prins (rpcrt100.zip) contains 386 instructions. It will not run on 8086/88/286 systems, but does not test for such systems! Pedt Scragg's unit: Information at http://www.pedt.demon.co.uk/crt/ including download links. Download directly from: http://www.signpost-design.co.uk/crt.zip ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/ibmpc/dos/programming/crt.zip ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/crt.zip Robert Prins' unit: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/rpcrt100.zip ********************************************************************** 4.2.3 Replacement OVERLAY unit for download ********************************************************************** Available on Garbo is a replacement Overlay unit. The unit comes with the never-made-available by Borland reconstructed sources of the original unit. The file containing the replacement unit also contains an improved version of Wilbert van Leijen's OVERXMS.ASM source, but not the other files in WvL's original archive! Both units contain 386 instructions and both are included in BPL70V20.ZIP. Download from: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopa7/over-120.zip ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/overxms.zip (WvL's original unit) ********************************************************************** 4.2.4 Emulator sources for download ********************************************************************** Borland never made the sources of the hard- and software emulator files available. Reconstructed sources, including those of the improved version of the hardware emulator by Norbert Juffa, with instructions on how to add them to the RTL are also available on Garbo: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbspec/em8x-110.zip Newer, further optimized and far better commented, versions can be found in BPL70V20.ZIP. ********************************************************************** Appendix A - ftp Mirror sites (Choose the closest to you) ********************************************************************** Public, authorized Garbo mirror sites: From Timo Salmi, 2003-03-07: > Garbo's mirrors are hardly relevant in this day and age. The main > site in enough. > Anyway: http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/garbinfo/garbmirr.html One mirror that is working and up to date, just in case Garbo is down, is Demon in the UK, ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/mirrors/garbo Simtel.Net Simtel.Net is a worldwide distribution network for Shareware, Freeware and Public Domain programs for MS-DOS, Windows 3.x and Windows 95/98. For a complete Simtel.Net list, send mail to listserv@Simtel.Net with body: get mirrors.info You can also get a list of mirror sites and directory descriptions from news:comp.archives.msdos.announce news:comp.archives.ms-windows.announce Look for the subjects List of Simtel.Net MS-DOS dirs w/descriptions List of Simtel.Net authorized mirror sites The Simtel mirrors should also be listed at ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/MIRRORS.TXT ********************************************************************** Appendix B - Credits ********************************************************************** Scott A. Moore - Original posting guidelines Dr John Stockton - WWW sites, many corrections/tips Prof. Timo Salmi - Garbo mirrors, corrections Anthon Pang - Beta testing WWW sites Keith Petersen - Simtel.Net information Marco van de Voort - Additional FPC info Tom Wheeley - Creator of this FAQ Chris Mathews - Previous maintainer of this FAQ Pedt Scragg - Previous maintainer of this FAQ Not forgetting those not mentioned whose contributions have also helped to keep the mFAQ up-to-date and useful. ********************************************************************** Thank you for reading the Mini-FAQ Copies available from - ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/faqclpb.zip - http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/clpb-faq.txt - ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/doc/faq/clpb/faqclpb.zip Old versions from http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/oldpfaqs/ Comments, additions, alterations and corrections to # Please do not be backward about coming forward if you have additions to the mFAQ. All suggestions, broken or amended links, suggestions for altering the content of the mFAQ are warmly welcomed. This mini-FAQ is (C) Copyright Robert AH Prins 2002-2006 on behalf of the newsgroup comp.lang.pascal.borland. Upon change of maintainer, the copyright will automatically pass over to the new maintainer. Except for the name of the maintainer and dates, the new maintainer is not allowed to change any part of this copyright notice. Verbatim copying and redistribution of an up-to-date version this mini-FAQ or any part of it is permitted and encouraged in any medium provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.