Program Like The 1980s. The RETRO Language You Need To Know!

Generations of programmers learnt to code this way. And you can still do it. And, what’s more, you don’t need objects. In this video I introduce you to an influential programming language that is as good today as it was back in the 1980s.
DOWNLOADS
Lazarus With Free Pascal: www.lazarus-ide.org/index.php?page=downloads
Delphi, Community Edition: www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter/free-download
For Really RETRO programming, you could install a version of Turbo Pascal that runs inside DOSBox (an MS-DOS emulator): sourceforge.net/projects/turbopascal-wdb/files/Setup/7.2.4/
SERIES PLAYLIST
Follow the lessons in this series on programming in Pascal: kzbin.info/aero/PLZHx5heVfgEvUoXVWwWJdZzEsF9T9rdSe
MORE LESSONS
Here are some other free courses that you will find on my channel.
Ten-Minute Guide To Pascal: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d3u3o3mXjaicrZIsi=0o-9fy2KehVkNIkq
Cross-Platform Programming With Lazarus: kzbin.info/aero/PLZHx5heVfgEsh0VggtXLcOY4ZVZW9CN3A
Program a Drag-and-Drop Outline Tool With Delphi: kzbin.info/aero/PLZHx5heVfgEtHeS6O2ePOkr3f-agvPxi6
Principles Of Programming (for beginners): kzbin.info/aero/PLZHx5heVfgEtDDA80jp8wRF6Sk5sG_h2Y
MY BOOKS
I am the author of a number of programming books on Pascal, C, C#, Java, Ruby and other topics including how to write an adventure game.
The Little Book Of Delphi (Object Pascal) Programming is available from:
* Amazon.com www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Delphi-Programming-Program/dp/1913132099/
* Amazon.co.uk www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Book-Delphi-Programming-Program/dp/1913132099/

[@4X6GP]

I wrote a relatively large program in Delphi starting with a 16-bit version in 1993, going to 32 bits in the next year. I maintained and developed the program until I retired in 2014. It is still in use today, having survived every version of Windows, including Windows 11! Today I play around with Lazarus under Linux and it's great.

[@LearnWithHuw]

What was the program? I used Delphi from the beta of v 1 onwards. What is remarkable though is how good backward compatibility is even with very old Turbo Pascal programs for DOS. I have to say that I was surprised at how few changes I had to make to programs 40 years old to run them with Free Pascal.

[@4X6GP]

@@LearnWithHuw It was a program with database, accounting, and specific functions for a particular industry. My wife and I sold more than 1000 copies of it worldwide. Delphi was perfect for that kind of thing because it allowed quick development of new functions when customers required them.

[@LearnWithHuw]

Excellent. I've been pottering about with Lazarus on my Raspberry Pi computer which runs a version of Linux. This makes it easy to program on Windows then recompile on the Raspberry Pi.

[@kookaburra.boogie]

Yes, I was blown away with Pascal’s pointers at the time 😂

[@TotoMacFrame]

Bringing back wonderful memories. TP was my first language and brought me to programming initially 20 years ago.

[@LearnWithHuw]

My absolute first language was GW-Basic (ugh!!!). Turbo Pascal came as a wonderful relief. 🙂

[@rhodaborrocks1654]

I never crossed paths with Pascal, never written Pascal code, and as I'm retired now I guess I never will, so I shall watch this series to discover what I missed out on.

[@OneAndOnlyMe]

After BASIC and 6502, Pascal was the next language I learned, and what blew me away was the IDE and the ability to compile my programs into executable binaries that could be easily distributed. A cool trick of Turbo Pascal that I loved was that you could have inline assembly code if you needed to speed up some bits of code. Another cool trick of Turbo Pascal was being able to explicitly place a variable at a memory location, which made it easy to map an array over video memory and manipulate the display using an array. Anders Hejlsberg, the legend who created Turbo Pascal, went on to develop C# and TypeScript for Microsoft.

[@LearnWithHuw]

It was also very fast to compile (C compilers like Lattice C were very slow - write/compile/link etc.) and rarely had anything that could reasonably be called an editor or IDE.

[@edwinmartens7459]

I'm a professional software engineer, programming in C, C++ and C#. And I would definitely recommend Pascal to any beginner. I still use Pascal myself for prototyping and hobby programming. Luckily Free Pascal and Lazarus revived the language. 👍🙂

[@gammyhorse]

10th place at tiobe index this month 💪💪

[@LearnWithHuw]

Ah yes! It's not up there with Python and C++. But it's above Rust and Ruby, so there's still hope.

[@peterking299]

I loved Pascal, I had to learn Pascal before I could learn C.

[@LearnWithHuw]

Pascal is a great foundation. It's a shame more programmers don't learn that way now.

[@purnamawinarsa7079]

Turbo Pascal contiunue with Borland Delphi, i remember ..

[@purnamawinarsa7079]

but i loss all the diskettes

[@LearnWithHuw]

@@purnamawinarsa7079 I think they released "Borland Pascal With Objects" first, with a class library created by the Whitewater Group (who had previously created a Pascal/Smalltalk hybrid called Actor). Delphi came along a bit later on. At some stage I programmed using all of them (but I've now forgotten a few of them 🙂).

[@jeyraxel]

Awesome.

[@LearnWithHuw]

Thanks. Have fun with this!