What is Symantec THINK Pascal 4.0?

Pascal was originally developed as a teaching language, with features that militate in favor of clear code and against tricky programming. As it happens, many programmers take great pride in the tricks they can do in other languages, particularly C, and the 1980s produced many high-quality C compilers. Thus at present C is more popular than Pascal among professionals, although Pascal still dominates university courses.

Symantec has produced, in Think Pascal 4.0, a programming environment so good that its only serious competition is Symantec’s own Think C 5.0. You can start learning the language with Symantec’s training program Just Enough Pascal, using the new Instant Project feature to handle libraries and organization. Then you can step through the sample programs in the Think Pascal user’s manual, or use Pascal texts specifically coordinated with Think Pascal (Macintosh Pascal Programmings by Dave Mark and Cartwright Reed [Addison-Wesley, 1991] is just brilliant). You can even learn to master Mac Toolbox calls from Pascal with the $99 companion program Think Reference, a well-organized hypertext version of the contents of Inside Macintoshs volumes I-V (see “The Whole Shooting Match”). Finally, there’s an argument to be made that object-oriented programming in Pascal, benefitting from the early evolution of Macintosh Object Pascal, is a natural transition from standard Pascal and is easier than the transition from C to C++. Think Pascal 4.0 is a remarkable accomplishment; a program good enough for professional programming that neophytes can also love.

Think Pascal 4.0 is very good indeed. Symantec claims a compilation speed of 60,000 lines per minute on a IIci (virtually the same speed as Think C 5.0), and I measured speeds averaging 48,000 1pm on an assortment of files. Please note that just a few years ago programmers lived witli just a fraction of this speed in MPW Pascal, and also had nothing resembling the efficiency of the Think Pascal 4.0 linker or the convenience of the Project Organizer. In practice, the compiler/linker speed in 4.0 permits you to recompile comfortably after every tiny code change, a powerful debugging trick. The Lightsbug debugger itself is faster in earlier versions, and instant syntax checking with the editor’s Pretty Printer is a wonderful touch.

Think Pascal 4.0 supports System 7 and the standard programmer’s set of Apple events, as well as extensions to allow creation of larger programs and programs using virtual memory. The already immense Think Class Library has been enhanced with not just the System 7 classes, but also new classes for pop-up menus, improved text handling, and multiwindow documents.

Seiter, Charles. (August 1992). Think Pascal 4.0. Macworld. (pg. 176).

Download Symantec THINK Pascal 4.0 for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

System Requirements

From Mac OS 6.0

Compatibility notes

• Macintosh Plus
• System 6.0
• 2 MB RAM recommended
• 4 MB RAM for Think Class Library or MacApp recommended

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II