Re: Instant Pascal

[Info-Mac]

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From: info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac)
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Subject: Re: Instant Pascal
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Date: Tue, 24-Jul-84 23:36:50 EDT
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Posted: Tue Jul 24 23:36:50 1984
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From: Richard Furuta
Could someone please explain to those of us out here in the sticks what
Instant Pascal is and if it is related to MacPascal? Who is producing
this and what is the estimated availability information?

--Rick
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From: mclure@Sri-Unix
To: [email protected]
CC: info-mac@sumex-aim
Subject: Re: Instant Pascal

Instant Pascal is by Think Technologies. I don't know exactly what
relation this company has to Apple but I have heard they were
comissioned by Apple to write an interpreter Pascal for the Macintosh.
It is not yet available commercially although Beta versions are
floating around.

Instant Pascal has been reviewed in both MacWorld and St.Mac
magazines. The current newstand issue of the latter carries a
comprehensive review that I recommend.

I have heard it will be available "soon." "Soon" ranges from 3
weeks to 3 months. The price will be $125. The documentation is
excellent and comprehensive. The documentation on Quickdraw access is
little short of amazing.

In short, it is an excellent software package. The only problem is
that the hardware isn't fast enough for substantial problems. The Mac
should really be running at 2x its current speed along with a good,
fast Winchester in order to get useful work done (e.g. programming and
non-trivial number computation and crunching). I consider a
well-configured PDP-11/70 with split instruction/data space to be the
minimum machine for doing good research problems on. The Macintosh is
not quite at this level, but if it were sped up by a factor of 2 or 3,
we'd sure be getting close.

I know nothing about MacPascal. There is a rumor that Apple has an
internal development effort going for a true compiler, but I have not
heard much about it.

Ideally, we would like to have something like Instant Pascal
well-integrated with a compiler. That way, you could develop your
programs in the comfortable interpreter development environment. Then,
for true systems applications and everyday running of your program, you
would pass your Pascal program to the optimizing compiler to get a
reasonably fast compiled version.

Stuart