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Microsoft Pascal

Microsoft Pascal Compiler for the 286 XENIX Operating System User's Guide, part number 8511I-330-05, document number 020-092-013, from 1985.
Original author(s)	Microsoft Corporation
Initial release	1980; 44 years ago (1980)
Stable release	4.0 / 1988; 36 years ago (1988)
Operating system	MS-DOS, Xenix, OS/2
Type	Pascal programming language
License	Commercial

Microsoft Pascal is a discontinued implementation of the Pascal programming language developed by the Microsoft Corporation for compiling programs for running on its MS-DOS and Xenix operating systems and, in later versions, on OS/2 (like many other Microsoft programming tools, albeit they are only capable of generating 16-bit programs for the latter).

Overview

Microsoft Pascal version 1.0 was released in 1980. The last version of Microsoft Pascal to be released was version 4.0 in 1988, when Microsoft Pascal was superseded by Microsoft QuickPascal, a cheaper development tool that Microsoft produced in order to compete with Borland's Turbo Pascal.

Microsoft Pascal was priced at $300, whereas QuickPascal was priced between $25 and 50, and the differences between the two were similar to those between Microsoft BASIC Professional Development System and Microsoft QuickBASIC.

Unlike the ISO-compliant Microsoft Pascal product, QuickPascal went after the ultimate compatibility with Turbo Pascal. This included not only source-level compatibility, but rather complete binary compatibility with widely available unit libraries for the competitor's compiler. To achieve this level of compatibility, QuickPascal moved away from the common file format (OBJ) and tool set (LINK, LIB) shared by Microsoft's other compilers.

References

1. ^ The Microsoft Archives, By Ben Armstrong, 8 Dec 2004, MSDN Blogs, One of the cool things about working at Microsoft is having access to the Microsoft Archives. It turns out that Microsoft has been quite fastidious about keep record of all product and press releases since the beginning of time. ...In 1980 Microsoft actually released their own PASCAL compiler - this was something that I never knew. This compiler was maintained through to 1988.
2. Advert: Microsoft Pascal (version 3.3), Page 162, PC Mag, 29 Oct 1985
3. "Microsoft compiler and operating system detailed versions information". Old Software Bought and Sold, EMS Professional software. Retrieved April 13, 2005.
4. ^ Product comparison: 4 Pascals for DOS, By John Walkenback, InfoWorld, 12 Sep 1988, Page 57:( Microsoft Pascal)
5. "Microsoft Pascal 4.0".
6. "Usenet post by Tom Hanlin". Google Groups. Retrieved April 13, 2005.

Notes

• Jon Udell, Clash of the Object-Oriented Pascals, BYTE, July, 1989.
• M.I.Trofimov, The End of Pascal?, BYTE, March, 1990, p. 36.

v t e Pascal programming language family
Dialects	Pascal Object Pascal Pascal Script Oxygene Clascal Concurrent Pascal Joyce SuperPascal
Compilers	Current Delphi (history) Oxygene VSI Pascal IP Pascal Free Pascal (Lazarus) PascalABC.NET GNU Pascal Turbo51 Pic Micro Pascal ACK Discontinued Virtual Pascal Apple Pascal Borland Kylix Turbo Pascal Microsoft Pascal UCSD Pascal JRT Pascal Pascal/MT+
API	CLX FCL FireMonkey LCL Object Windows Library OpenWire RTL Turbo Vision Visual Component Library
Microcomputer	Pascal MicroEngine
Comparisons	Pascal and C Pascal and Delphi
Designer	Niklaus Wirth
Genericity Related to ALGOL (1958) Modula-2 (1977) Ada (1983) Oberon (1986) Modula-3 (1988) Oberon-2 (1991) Component Pascal (1991)

v t e Microsoft development tools
Development environments	Visual Studio Code Express Team System Profiler Tools for Applications Tools for Office Others Blend Expression Web FxCop GW-BASIC MACRO-80 Macro Assembler MSBuild Pascal QuickBASIC QBasic QuickC Robotics Developer Studio Roslyn SharePoint Designer FrontPage Small Basic WebMatrix Windows App SDK Windows App Studio Windows SDK CLR Profiler ILAsm Native Image Generator WinDiff XAMLPad
Languages	Dynamics AX BASIC Visual Basic legacy VB.NET VBA VBScript Bosque Visual C++ C++/CX C++/CLI Managed C++ C++/WinRT C# C/AL Dafny Dexterity F# F* Visual FoxPro Java J++ J# JavaScript TypeScript JScript IronPython IronRuby Lean P Power Fx PowerShell Project Verona Q# Small Basic VPL XAML
APIs and frameworks	Native Windows API Silverlight XNA DirectX Managed DirectX UWP Xbox Development Kit Windows Installer WinUI .NET ASP.NET Core AJAX Dynamic Data MVC Razor Web Forms ADO.NET Entity Framework MAUI CardSpace Communication Foundation Identity Foundation LINQ Presentation Foundation Workflow Foundation Device drivers WDK WDF KMDF UMDF Windows HLK WDM
Database	SQL Server Express Compact Management Studio Business Intelligence Development Studio MSDE SQL services Analysis Reporting Integration Notification Other Visual FoxPro Microsoft Access Access Database Engine Extensible Storage Engine
Source control	Visual SourceSafe Team Foundation Version Control
Testing and debugging	CodeView OneFuzz Playwright Script Debugger WinDbg xUnit.net
Delivery	Active Setup ClickOnce npm NuGet vcpkg Web Platform Installer Windows Installer WiX Windows Package Manager Microsoft Store
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