History
The compiler was quite popular in the BBS scene, probably because of its OS/2 port and being one of the few affordable multi-target compilers. Also Turbo Pascal had been popular in the BBS scene too, but its successor, Delphi was suddenly for Windows only. Virtual Pascal provided a migration path for existing codebases.
There has been pressure from some users for Virtual Pascal to be made into open-source software. This has not been done, provided the following reasoning:
- The compiler source is mostly written in Intel assembly which is hard to change and maintain.
- Part of the run-time library is proprietary to Borland
- Documentation and help are maintained with expensive proprietary tools
- There is nobody who fully understands the code. Alan said that some of the deeper areas were no-touch for him (original code by Vitaly)
Read more about this topic: Virtual Pascal
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.”
—Henry Geldzahler (1935–1994)
“The history of medicine is the history of the unusual.”
—Robert M. Fresco, and Jack Arnold. Prof. Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)