[fpc-other] How was compiled the very first version of FPC?

[Giuliano Colla]

While installing FPC on a new platform, and looking for the appropriate
seed compiler, a question came to my mind.

As compiling FPC from sources requires a previous FPC version, how was
compiled the very first version of FPC?

I have a found a number of possible answers, but which one is the good one?

1) FPC has always existed, it was just created at the Big Bang, at the
same time as the hydrogen atoms.

2) A minimal version of FPC was written in assembler.

3) A minimal version of FPC was written in ALGOL

4) The first FPC was written in Pascal and compiled using Turbo Pascal
or something similar.

I'm fond of answer 1) :-) but I'm unsure...

Giuliano


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[Karoly Balogh (Charlie/SGR)]

Hi,

While installing FPC on a new platform, and looking for the appropriate seed
compiler, a question came to my mind.
As compiling FPC from sources requires a previous FPC version, how was
compiled the very first version of FPC?
I have a found a number of possible answers, but which one is the good one?
1) FPC has always existed, it was just created at the Big Bang, at the same
time as the hydrogen atoms.

Yes, and it then since became a supermassive black hole, sucking all code
out of the poor maintainers! :P

4) The first FPC was written in Pascal and compiled using Turbo Pascal or
something similar.
I'm fond of answer 1) :-) but I'm unsure...

The point 4. is correct. The first version was done in Turbo Pascal, then
eventually the compiler became able to compile itself. Until 1.0(?) I
think it was still possible to build the compiler with TP7. Later the TP7
compatibility was dropped, and since then FPC is only developed in itself.

It's written on Wikipedia BTW:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Pascal#Early_years

:)

Charlie
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[Travis Siegel]

And ultimately I think that TP was written in Z80 assembler, later
converted to 8086.

Actually, I don't know about versions pre 4.0), but source code versions
of tp 6 have escaped into the wild, and if you can locate one of those,
you'll see turbo pascal is written in turbo pascal as well. There's
assembly language for some routines to speed up certain parts of the
code, but in general, it's mostly pascal code. Interesting, but I never
did look at the code itself, since I didn't have the tools required to
compile it, so it never interested me. Of course, I haven't a clue where
you'd find such a thing these days, last time I saw it was about 10
years ago, on some chineese site, so who knows.



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[gabor]

http://turbopascal.org/
I think it's not borland's turbo pascal

Post by Travis Siegel

And ultimately I think that TP was written in Z80 assembler, later
converted to 8086.

Actually, I don't know about versions pre 4.0), but source code versions
of tp 6 have escaped into the wild, and if you can locate one of those,
you'll see turbo pascal is written in turbo pascal as well. There's
assembly language for some routines to speed up certain parts of the
code, but in general, it's mostly pascal code. Interesting, but I never
did look at the code itself, since I didn't have the tools required to
compile it, so it never interested me. Of course, I haven't a clue where
you'd find such a thing these days, last time I saw it was about 10
years ago, on some chineese site, so who knows.
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[Ralf Quint]

Post by gabor
http://turbopascal.org/
I think it's not borland's turbo pascal

No, it's not, it's the site of a Russian guy who says he reverse
engineered Turbo Pascal 7 and sells the source code for that (called
TPC16, there's also a 32bit version compiled with Delphi).

This site is around for years, so if something would be way out of whack
on how he got the source code, I am pretty sure
Borland/Inprise/Codegear/Embarcadero would have gotten on his case a
long time ago.

Ralf



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[Lars]

Post by Ralf Quint

Post by gabor
http://turbopascal.org/
I think it's not borland's turbo pascal

No, it's not, it's the site of a Russian guy who says he reverse
engineered Turbo Pascal 7 and sells the source code for that (called TPC16,
there's also a 32bit version compiled with Delphi).
This site is around for years, so if something would be way out of whack
on how he got the source code, I am pretty sure
Borland/Inprise/Codegear/Embarcadero would have gotten on his case a
long time ago.

Well, the uncommented assembly code source of Turbo Pascal was in fact
leaked on torrent or emule ... but whether he saw this source I don't
know... But I know it was indeed leaked.
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[geneb]

And ultimately I think that TP was written in Z80 assembler, later
converted to 8086.

Actually, I don't know about versions pre 4.0), but source code versions of
tp 6 have escaped into the wild, and if you can locate one of those, you'll

Maybe for the TP6 runtime libraries, but never for the compiler itself as
far as I know. BP7 included the runtime sources as part of the
distribution.

g.
--
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http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.

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A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
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[Lars]

Post by Travis Siegel

And ultimately I think that TP was written in Z80 assembler, later
converted to 8086.

Actually, I don't know about versions pre 4.0), but source code versions
of tp 6 have escaped into the wild, and if you can locate one of those,
you'll see turbo pascal is written in turbo pascal as well. There's
assembly language for some routines to speed up certain parts of the code,
but in general, it's mostly pascal code.

Maybe in the later days but Turbo Pascal originally was written in, AFAIK,
100 percent assembly code, with not a single source comment...

Anders was very secretive about his code as he didn't want people to steal
it.... and protected it closely....

In the later (or latter) days, Borland decided that assembly code was not
so easy to maintain... I thought they made this decision in delphi days,
but maybe they made in at some point in Turbo Pascal days and converted
some of Anders assembly to turbo pascal.
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[Lars]

Post by Giuliano Colla
While installing FPC on a new platform, and looking for the appropriate
seed compiler, a question came to my mind.
As compiling FPC from sources requires a previous FPC version, how was
compiled the very first version of FPC?
I have a found a number of possible answers, but which one is the good one?
1) FPC has always existed, it was just created at the Big Bang, at the
same time as the hydrogen atoms.

(turbo pascal)

This very question was asked many years ago, maybe by myself, when I was
first learning FPC.

We got in to discussions about the origin of the universe itself, and
Florian K. ended up saying something about physical bit switches being
used to program a system which has no software on it yet...

But I could be distorting the discussion slightly ;-)

If I could find the old posts from maybe 2004-2006 era I would.. but I'm
too lazy to look in the archives. Basically the meaning of life is: "if
there is no software yet installed on the circuit board and you have no
other options, just use some physical bit switches to program the system
with your bare hands"... But yes it was turbo pascal that was used.
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[Lars]

Post by Lars

Post by Giuliano Colla
1) FPC has always existed, it was just created at the Big Bang, at the
same time as the hydrogen atoms.

This very question was asked many years ago, maybe by myself, when I was
first learning FPC.
We got in to discussions about the origin of the universe itself, and
Florian K. ended up saying something about physical bit switches being
used to program a system which has no software on it yet...
But I could be distorting the discussion slightly ;-)
If I could find the old posts from maybe 2004-2006 era I would..

http://www.mail-archive.com/fpc-***@lists.freepascal.org/msg04118.html

Ehhh...
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[Lukasz Sokol]

Post by Lars
This very question was asked many years ago, maybe by myself, when I was
first learning FPC.
We got in to discussions about the origin of the universe itself, and
Florian K. ended up saying something about physical bit switches being
used to program a system which has no software on it yet...
But I could be distorting the discussion slightly ;-)
If I could find the old posts from maybe 2004-2006 era I would.. but I'm
too lazy to look in the archives. Basically the meaning of life is: "if
there is no software yet installed on the circuit board and you have no
other options, just use some physical bit switches to program the system
with your bare hands"... But yes it was turbo pascal that was used.

ICSMBIDNWT (I Could Stop Myself But I Did Not Want To)

https://xkcd.com/378/

-L.


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[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Post by Lukasz Sokol
https://xkcd.com/378/

ROFL - some of those xkcd comic strips are brilliant!


Regards,
Graeme

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