Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 UW 5/3/83; site uw-beaver Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!info-mac From: info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) Newsgroups: fa.info-mac Subject: Re: Instant Pascal Message-ID: <1316@uw-beaver> Date: Tue, 24-Jul-84 23:36:50 EDT Article-I.D.: uw-beave.1316 Posted: Tue Jul 24 23:36:50 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 27-Jul-84 01:39:10 EDT Sender: daemon@uw-beave Organization: U of Washington Computer Science Lines: 52 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 ------- Return-Path: Received: from sri-unix by SUMEX-AIM.ARPA with TCP; Tue 24 Jul 84 16:47:48-PDT Date: 24 Jul 84 16:36-PDT From: mclure@Sri-Unix To: Furuta@WASHINGTON.ARPA 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