[HN Gopher] Turbo Pascal Compiler in JavaScript
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       Turbo Pascal Compiler in JavaScript
        
       Author : mariuz
       Score  : 63 points
       Date   : 2021-02-20 20:27 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | pjmlp wrote:
       | For Turbo Pascal 5.5, the Web IDE looks pretty much like Turbo
       | Pascal 3.0.
       | 
       | Oh well, cool achievement anyway. Playing with it right now.
        
         | Narishma wrote:
         | It's just a shallow copy and doesn't support the default
         | wordstar keybindings in the editing mode.
        
           | virgulino wrote:
           | ^Y delete line, ^KB block begin, ^KK block end, ^KC copy
           | block, ^KY delete block, ^PH for accents.
           | 
           | Amazing, I don't know how many years (decades?) I haven't
           | used it, but some keybindings are still in my memory!
        
       | jstanley wrote:
       | The author's blog post is quite enjoyable:
       | https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/projects/turbo_pascal_compi...
       | 
       | > My friend Fredrik Fatemi and I spent the summer after high
       | school (1989) writing graphics programs in Turbo Pascal on his
       | 286 PC (with EGA!) in his basement while watching The Princess
       | Bride again and again on his VCR. He recently found some 31/2"
       | diskettes with our programs on it. I couldn't find a good way to
       | run them on my Mac, so naturally I wrote a Turbo Pascal compiler.
       | It's web based and you can try it here.[1]
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/projects/turbo_pascal_compi...
        
         | mseepgood wrote:
         | > I couldn't find a good way to run them on my Mac
         | 
         | Dosbox / Boxer
        
       | mromanuk wrote:
       | > I couldn't find a good way to run them on my Mac, so naturally
       | I wrote a Turbo Pascal compiler
       | 
       | Of course, it's the natural thing to do. Amazing, writing a
       | compiler
        
       | iagovar wrote:
       | A bit offtopic, but I recently discovered Lazarus, and I was
       | pleasantly reminded that the language I learned in high school is
       | still kicking.
        
       | jll29 wrote:
       | Pascal was quite an accomplishment: a compact, elegant, easy-to-
       | learn, easy-to-read language.
       | 
       | And Wirth's "Compilerbau" (Compiler Construction) booklet (about
       | the size and less than the weight of a bar of chocolate) is a
       | true gem; it makes it all look very simple.
        
         | Quekid5 wrote:
         | > elegant, easy-to-learn, easy-to-read language.
         | 
         | Compared to C? Yes, obviously.
         | 
         | Compared to languages we have now? Not so much.
        
       | nathell wrote:
       | In 1996, I wrote programs in TP 6.0 on a 486DX2/66 with 4 MB RAM.
       | The IDE weighed in at a few megs, compiled my stuff in less than
       | a second, and produced standalone .EXEs that ran on every DOS PC.
       | 
       | In 2021, I'm writing programs for iOS in React Native. I need
       | Xcode that weighs in at ~8GB _compressed_, node.js, and RN plus
       | the whole slew of dependencies. On my 2020 Intel Mac mini w/ 32
       | GB of RAM, Xcode takes multiple minutes to build just the native
       | part of the project from scratch.
       | 
       | Where, where on earth did I go wrong?
        
         | Quekid5 wrote:
         | Did your programs in 1996 do anything close to as much as they
         | do now?
         | 
         | It's easy to feel a lot of nostalgia, but those truly were
         | simpler times when we expected a _lot_ less of our computers
         | /programs.
        
           | trav4225 wrote:
           | Software did less in 1996. That's why it was so much better!
           | :-)
        
         | Swizec wrote:
         | How long would it take you to build everything you get from RN
         | and all the libraries in TP6?
         | 
         | From what I remember of TP6 it would take me a few years. Maybe
         | even a decade. Oh and a lot of libraries (like mouse support)
         | used assembly code and prob only worked on a limited numbed of
         | computers.
        
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       (page generated 2021-02-20 23:00 UTC)