{"slug": "turbo-pascal", "name": "Turbo Pascal", "category": "editors", "category_name": "Editors and IDEs", "description": "Borland's classic Pascal compiler and integrated development environment for MS-DOS and CP/M.", "recommenders": 6, "commenters": 11, "warners": 0, "score": 6.883, "rising": 2.02, "first": "2025-11-19", "latest": "2026-10-14", "why": "HN commenters remember it fondly for a super-fast compiler with a built-in debugger and online help, and for a rich text-mode windowed UI that inspired business apps.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 6, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 2, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": ["Fond nostalgia", "Text-mode UI"], "caveat": "CP/M version", "short_quote": "It was an editor with an awesome built-in debugger, profiler, online help, super fast compiler.", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "unknown", "aliases": ["Turbo Pascal"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters remember it fondly for a super-fast compiler with a built-in debugger and online help,", "cites": [{"id": 799483280, "item_id": 49967705, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49967705", "by": "microtonal", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It was an editor with an awesome built-in debugger, profiler, online help, super fast compiler.", "excerpt": "Imagine going back in time to late-80s/early-90s, and vividly describing all the tools we have now to folks back then -- coding agents, loops, autonomous multi-hour agentic workflows, automated testing, and PRs, and whatnot. Wonder what their reaction would be. I sometimes look at my pre-2024 workflows and feel like I'm looking at a caveman's toolchain. Absolutely bonkers as to how quickly we humans adapt to things. ", "context": "", "use_case": "programming IDE", "switched_from": "", "story": "Borland Turbo Basic"}, {"id": 788887216, "item_id": 49305451, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49305451", "by": "bananaboy", "date": "2026-08-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "when I discovered TP5 on MS-DOS I was blown away!", "excerpt": "Same here! Very fond memories. I used Turbo Pascal 3.3 under CP/M on the Microbee but found it a bit hard and cumbersome to use. But when I discovered TP5 on MS-DOS I was blown away! This was coming from writing BASIC and batch files.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Turbo Pascal on CP/M, MSX-DOS and MS-DOS \u2013 Pascal for Small Machines"}]}, {"text": " and for a rich text-mode windowed UI that inspired business apps.", "cites": [{"id": 790409794, "item_id": 49400612, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49400612", "by": "omnibrain", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Look at the Turbo Pascal IDE and business apps built with it.", "excerpt": "Yes, stop making TUIs. Make GUIs in Terminals! It\u2019s ridiculous how far we have fallen behind the Terminal GUIs from the early 90ies. Look at the Turbo Pascal IDE and business apps built with it. Windows, window management, scrolling in windows, rich dialogs. Everything there. While many modern TUIs are just lists with numbers you can select. Everything is pretty rudimentary I was missing a real terminal GUI library f", "context": "", "use_case": "example of rich terminal GUI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 775937089, "item_id": 48496068, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496068", "by": "ovi256", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it reminds of Turbo Pascal, which was so cool", "excerpt": "I love retro UIs, and this one even more, because of course it reminds of Turbo Pascal, which was so cool. Great job!", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Turbokod \u2013 A Retro IDE"}, {"id": 750367568, "item_id": 46897973, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46897973", "by": "joaquinbernal", "date": "2026-02-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Borland was at its peak, and Turbo Pascal or Turbo C/C++ were used all the time.", "excerpt": "Agreed: Borland was at its peak, and Turbo Pascal or Turbo C/C++ were used all the time. Turbo Vision was the framework under many applications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_Vision Also, Clipper was very popular at that time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_(programming_language)", "context": "", "use_case": "1980s enterprise development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How was enterprise software developed in 1980s?"}]}, {"text": " The few caveats are that the CP/M version felt cumbersome", "cites": [{"id": 788887216, "item_id": 49305451, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49305451", "by": "bananaboy", "date": "2026-08-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "when I discovered TP5 on MS-DOS I was blown away!", "excerpt": "Same here! Very fond memories. I used Turbo Pascal 3.3 under CP/M on the Microbee but found it a bit hard and cumbersome to use. But when I discovered TP5 on MS-DOS I was blown away! This was coming from writing BASIC and batch files.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Turbo Pascal on CP/M, MSX-DOS and MS-DOS \u2013 Pascal for Small Machines"}]}, {"text": " and later versions had to be trimmed to fit on a floppy.", "cites": [{"id": 788936448, "item_id": 49308528, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49308528", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-08-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The TP versions started with 3.0, up to 6.0, naturally later versions had to be customised to fit into the floppy.", "excerpt": "Yes, for me a few year's later I did the same with a high density floppy (1.44 MB), holding MS-DOS 3.3, TP, and a few utils. The TP versions started with 3.0, up to 6.0, naturally later versions had to be customised to fit into the floppy. I used to carry it around for the school computers. However that is another level given CPC limitations.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming on school computers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Turbo Pascal on CP/M, MSX-DOS and MS-DOS \u2013 Pascal for Small Machines"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Fond nostalgia", "summary": "Commenters recall it as great and remember being blown away by it.", "quotes": [{"id": 788887216, "item_id": 49305451, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49305451", "by": "bananaboy", "date": "2026-08-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "when I discovered TP5 on MS-DOS I was blown away!", "excerpt": "Same here! Very fond memories. I used Turbo Pascal 3.3 under CP/M on the Microbee but found it a bit hard and cumbersome to use. But when I discovered TP5 on MS-DOS I was blown away! This was coming from writing BASIC and batch files.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Turbo Pascal on CP/M, MSX-DOS and MS-DOS \u2013 Pascal for Small Machines"}, {"id": 767199120, "item_id": 47949945, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47949945", "by": "submeta", "date": "2026-04-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "yet Turbo Pascal was great", "excerpt": "Palm Pilot is mentioned, but not Amiga Computers? For me it defined an era. Warez, games, hacking in assembly and Aztec C compiler. Too bad I migrated to MS DOS (yet Turbo Pascal was great), as Macs were unaffordable in Germany. Edit: A good list anyway. AOL dial tone and AOL CDs. Lol. Spent countless hours chatting to strangers on aol.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Rip.so \u2013 a graveyard for dead internet things"}, {"id": 775937089, "item_id": 48496068, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496068", "by": "ovi256", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it reminds of Turbo Pascal, which was so cool", "excerpt": "I love retro UIs, and this one even more, because of course it reminds of Turbo Pascal, which was so cool. Great job!", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Turbokod \u2013 A Retro IDE"}]}, {"label": "Text-mode UI", "summary": "Its windowed terminal interface and Turbo Vision are held up as better than many modern TUIs.", "quotes": [{"id": 790409794, "item_id": 49400612, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49400612", "by": "omnibrain", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Look at the Turbo Pascal IDE and business apps built with it.", "excerpt": "Yes, stop making TUIs. Make GUIs in Terminals! It\u2019s ridiculous how far we have fallen behind the Terminal GUIs from the early 90ies. Look at the Turbo Pascal IDE and business apps built with it. Windows, window management, scrolling in windows, rich dialogs. Everything there. While many modern TUIs are just lists with numbers you can select. Everything is pretty rudimentary I was missing a real terminal GUI library f", "context": "", "use_case": "example of rich terminal GUI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 775937089, "item_id": 48496068, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496068", "by": "ovi256", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it reminds of Turbo Pascal, which was so cool", "excerpt": "I love retro UIs, and this one even more, because of course it reminds of Turbo Pascal, which was so cool. Great job!", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Turbokod \u2013 A Retro IDE"}, {"id": 750367568, "item_id": 46897973, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46897973", "by": "joaquinbernal", "date": "2026-02-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Borland was at its peak, and Turbo Pascal or Turbo C/C++ were used all the time.", "excerpt": "Agreed: Borland was at its peak, and Turbo Pascal or Turbo C/C++ were used all the time. Turbo Vision was the framework under many applications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_Vision Also, Clipper was very popular at that time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_(programming_language)", "context": "", "use_case": "1980s enterprise development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How was enterprise software developed in 1980s?"}]}, {"label": "Integrated tooling", "summary": "An editor with built-in debugger, profiler, online help and a super-fast compiler.", "quotes": [{"id": 799483280, "item_id": 49967705, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49967705", "by": "microtonal", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It was an editor with an awesome built-in debugger, profiler, online help, super fast compiler.", "excerpt": "Imagine going back in time to late-80s/early-90s, and vividly describing all the tools we have now to folks back then -- coding agents, loops, autonomous multi-hour agentic workflows, automated testing, and PRs, and whatnot. Wonder what their reaction would be. I sometimes look at my pre-2024 workflows and feel like I'm looking at a caveman's toolchain. Absolutely bonkers as to how quickly we humans adapt to things. ", "context": "", "use_case": "programming IDE", "switched_from": "", "story": "Borland Turbo Basic"}]}, {"label": "Student friendly", "summary": "Favored by hobbyists and students, and carried on floppies to school computer labs.", "quotes": [{"id": 735805586, "item_id": 45987849, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45987849", "by": "analog31", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've always preferred tools that were favored by hobbyists and students, including 8-bit BASIC, Turbo Pascal, HyperCard", "excerpt": "When talking among engineers about Arduino, I find that it always requires a bit of explanation, because there's Arduino, but then there's Arduino. \"Arduino\" is the name of the original, humble little microcontroller board. It's a brand name for a series of boards ranging from simple and cheap, to quite elaborate. It's a ecosystem of firmware development tools and libraries that revolve around the Arduino API, that h", "context": "microprocessor developer since 1984", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Death of Arduino?"}, {"id": 784970320, "item_id": 49060645, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060645", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-07-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "A customised mix of Turbo Pascal and MS-DOS 3.3 could fit in a 3.5 inch high density floppy", "excerpt": "A customised mix of Turbo Pascal and MS-DOS 3.3 could fit in a 3.5 inch high density floppy, meaning 1.44 MB for the young folks. I know that because I used to carry one for use on high school computer lab. Then a couple others for programs.", "context": "used it in high school computer lab", "use_case": "programming in school computer lab", "switched_from": "", "story": "No Stack Overflow, No Autocomplete: What Coding Felt Like in the 80s"}, {"id": 788936448, "item_id": 49308528, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49308528", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-08-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The TP versions started with 3.0, up to 6.0, naturally later versions had to be customised to fit into the floppy.", "excerpt": "Yes, for me a few year's later I did the same with a high density floppy (1.44 MB), holding MS-DOS 3.3, TP, and a few utils. The TP versions started with 3.0, up to 6.0, naturally later versions had to be customised to fit into the floppy. I used to carry it around for the school computers. However that is another level given CPC limitations.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming on school computers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Turbo Pascal on CP/M, MSX-DOS and MS-DOS \u2013 Pascal for Small Machines"}]}, {"label": "Compact footprint", "summary": "It fit alongside MS-DOS 3.3 on a single 1.44 MB floppy.", "quotes": [{"id": 784970320, "item_id": 49060645, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060645", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-07-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "A customised mix of Turbo Pascal and MS-DOS 3.3 could fit in a 3.5 inch high density floppy", "excerpt": "A customised mix of Turbo Pascal and MS-DOS 3.3 could fit in a 3.5 inch high density floppy, meaning 1.44 MB for the young folks. I know that because I used to carry one for use on high school computer lab. Then a couple others for programs.", "context": "used it in high school computer lab", "use_case": "programming in school computer lab", "switched_from": "", "story": "No Stack Overflow, No Autocomplete: What Coding Felt Like in the 80s"}, {"id": 788936448, "item_id": 49308528, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49308528", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-08-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The TP versions started with 3.0, up to 6.0, naturally later versions had to be customised to fit into the floppy.", "excerpt": "Yes, for me a few year's later I did the same with a high density floppy (1.44 MB), holding MS-DOS 3.3, TP, and a few utils. The TP versions started with 3.0, up to 6.0, naturally later versions had to be customised to fit into the floppy. I used to carry it around for the school computers. However that is another level given CPC limitations.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming on school computers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Turbo Pascal on CP/M, MSX-DOS and MS-DOS \u2013 Pascal for Small Machines"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "CP/M version", "summary": "Turbo Pascal 3.3 under CP/M was found hard and cumbersome to use.", "quotes": [{"id": 788887216, "item_id": 49305451, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49305451", "by": "bananaboy", "date": "2026-08-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "when I discovered TP5 on MS-DOS I was blown away!", "excerpt": "Same here! Very fond memories. I used Turbo Pascal 3.3 under CP/M on the Microbee but found it a bit hard and cumbersome to use. But when I discovered TP5 on MS-DOS I was blown away! This was coming from writing BASIC and batch files.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Turbo Pascal on CP/M, MSX-DOS and MS-DOS \u2013 Pascal for Small Machines"}]}, {"label": "Floppy trimming", "summary": "Later versions had to be customised to fit onto a single floppy.", "quotes": [{"id": 788936448, "item_id": 49308528, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49308528", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-08-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The TP versions started with 3.0, up to 6.0, naturally later versions had to be customised to fit into the floppy.", "excerpt": "Yes, for me a few year's later I did the same with a high density floppy (1.44 MB), holding MS-DOS 3.3, TP, and a few utils. The TP versions started with 3.0, up to 6.0, naturally later versions had to be customised to fit into the floppy. I used to carry it around for the school computers. However that is another level given CPC limitations.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming on school computers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Turbo Pascal on CP/M, MSX-DOS and MS-DOS \u2013 Pascal for Small Machines"}]}], "who": [{"by": "pjmlp", "context": "used it in high school computer lab", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060645", "date": "2026-07-26"}, {"by": "analog31", "context": "microprocessor developer since 1984", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45987849", "date": "2025-11-19"}], "tags": ["for students", "for hobbyists", "for MS-DOS", "for business apps"], "use_cases": ["programming", "building inspection application", "programming ide", "example of rich terminal gui", "programming on school computers", "programming in school computer lab"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49965894", "title": "Borland Turbo Basic", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49269809", "title": "Turbo Pascal on CP/M, MSX-DOS and MS-DOS \u2013 Pascal for Small Machines", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46897281", "title": "Ask HN: How was enterprise software developed in 1980s?", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50085114", "title": "Ask HN: Why do people say \"I built it\" when we should say \"Claude built it\"?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49384210", "title": "Stop Making TUIs", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49056424", "title": "No Stack Overflow, No Autocomplete: What Coding Felt Like in the 80s", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 801511728, "item_id": 50094483, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50094483", "by": "mikewarot", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used Turbo Pascal to build an application that recorded the inspection of Fire Protection Equipment", "excerpt": "I used Turbo Pascal to build an application that recorded the inspection of Fire Protection Equipment using a handheld computer, special serial card, and a PC back in the days of MS-DOS. I never would have said that Turbo Pascal built the application. I'd not say that any compiler builds an finished application, but it's merely a tool along the way. The same should be true of AI. It took a person to come up with the ", "context": "", "use_case": "building inspection application", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Why do people say \"I built it\" when we should say \"Claude built it\"?"}, {"id": 799483280, "item_id": 49967705, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49967705", "by": "microtonal", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It was an editor with an awesome built-in debugger, profiler, online help, super fast compiler.", "excerpt": "Imagine going back in time to late-80s/early-90s, and vividly describing all the tools we have now to folks back then -- coding agents, loops, autonomous multi-hour agentic workflows, automated testing, and PRs, and whatnot. Wonder what their reaction would be. I sometimes look at my pre-2024 workflows and feel like I'm looking at a caveman's toolchain. Absolutely bonkers as to how quickly we humans adapt to things. ", "context": "", "use_case": "programming IDE", "switched_from": "", "story": "Borland Turbo Basic"}, {"id": 799466864, "item_id": 49966679, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49966679", "by": "98codes", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I graduated quickly from Borland Turbo Basic to Turbo Pascal", "excerpt": "I graduated quickly from Borland Turbo Basic to Turbo Pascal, and really wish I'd bothered to hold onto all those old floppies. I do still have a Visual Studio / VSCode color settings file that matches the old look -- I used those colors for a good long time, longer than it took me to stop coding in all caps.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming", "switched_from": "Turbo Basic", "story": "Borland Turbo Basic"}, {"id": 790409794, "item_id": 49400612, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49400612", "by": "omnibrain", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Look at the Turbo Pascal IDE and business apps built with it.", "excerpt": "Yes, stop making TUIs. Make GUIs in Terminals! It\u2019s ridiculous how far we have fallen behind the Terminal GUIs from the early 90ies. Look at the Turbo Pascal IDE and business apps built with it. Windows, window management, scrolling in windows, rich dialogs. Everything there. While many modern TUIs are just lists with numbers you can select. Everything is pretty rudimentary I was missing a real terminal GUI library f", "context": "", "use_case": "example of rich terminal GUI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 788936448, "item_id": 49308528, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49308528", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-08-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The TP versions started with 3.0, up to 6.0, naturally later versions had to be customised to fit into the floppy.", "excerpt": "Yes, for me a few year's later I did the same with a high density floppy (1.44 MB), holding MS-DOS 3.3, TP, and a few utils. The TP versions started with 3.0, up to 6.0, naturally later versions had to be customised to fit into the floppy. I used to carry it around for the school computers. However that is another level given CPC limitations.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming on school computers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Turbo Pascal on CP/M, MSX-DOS and MS-DOS \u2013 Pascal for Small Machines"}, {"id": 788887216, "item_id": 49305451, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49305451", "by": "bananaboy", "date": "2026-08-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "when I discovered TP5 on MS-DOS I was blown away!", "excerpt": "Same here! Very fond memories. I used Turbo Pascal 3.3 under CP/M on the Microbee but found it a bit hard and cumbersome to use. But when I discovered TP5 on MS-DOS I was blown away! This was coming from writing BASIC and batch files.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Turbo Pascal on CP/M, MSX-DOS and MS-DOS \u2013 Pascal for Small Machines"}, {"id": 784970320, "item_id": 49060645, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060645", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-07-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "A customised mix of Turbo Pascal and MS-DOS 3.3 could fit in a 3.5 inch high density floppy", "excerpt": "A customised mix of Turbo Pascal and MS-DOS 3.3 could fit in a 3.5 inch high density floppy, meaning 1.44 MB for the young folks. I know that because I used to carry one for use on high school computer lab. Then a couple others for programs.", "context": "used it in high school computer lab", "use_case": "programming in school computer lab", "switched_from": "", "story": "No Stack Overflow, No Autocomplete: What Coding Felt Like in the 80s"}, {"id": 775937089, "item_id": 48496068, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496068", "by": "ovi256", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it reminds of Turbo Pascal, which was so cool", "excerpt": "I love retro UIs, and this one even more, because of course it reminds of Turbo Pascal, which was so cool. Great job!", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Turbokod \u2013 A Retro IDE"}, {"id": 767199120, "item_id": 47949945, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47949945", "by": "submeta", "date": "2026-04-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "yet Turbo Pascal was great", "excerpt": "Palm Pilot is mentioned, but not Amiga Computers? For me it defined an era. Warez, games, hacking in assembly and Aztec C compiler. Too bad I migrated to MS DOS (yet Turbo Pascal was great), as Macs were unaffordable in Germany. Edit: A good list anyway. AOL dial tone and AOL CDs. Lol. Spent countless hours chatting to strangers on aol.", "context": "", "use_case": "programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Rip.so \u2013 a graveyard for dead internet things"}, {"id": 750367568, "item_id": 46897973, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46897973", "by": "joaquinbernal", "date": "2026-02-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Borland was at its peak, and Turbo Pascal or Turbo C/C++ were used all the time.", "excerpt": "Agreed: Borland was at its peak, and Turbo Pascal or Turbo C/C++ were used all the time. Turbo Vision was the framework under many applications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_Vision Also, Clipper was very popular at that time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_(programming_language)", "context": "", "use_case": "1980s enterprise development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How was enterprise software developed in 1980s?"}, {"id": 750359808, "item_id": 46897488, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46897488", "by": "tvmalsv", "date": "2026-02-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "For me it was Turbo Pascal, Turbo C/C++, regular Borland C++.", "excerpt": "For me it was Turbo Pascal, Turbo C/C++, regular Borland C++. Not an enterprise app, but I worked on a project (kind of like a primitive CMS) for a church using PFS:Write and PFS:Professional File. That was a terrible experience.", "context": "", "use_case": "1980s development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How was enterprise software developed in 1980s?"}, {"id": 735805586, "item_id": 45987849, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45987849", "by": "analog31", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've always preferred tools that were favored by hobbyists and students, including 8-bit BASIC, Turbo Pascal, HyperCard", "excerpt": "When talking among engineers about Arduino, I find that it always requires a bit of explanation, because there's Arduino, but then there's Arduino. \"Arduino\" is the name of the original, humble little microcontroller board. It's a brand name for a series of boards ranging from simple and cheap, to quite elaborate. It's a ecosystem of firmware development tools and libraries that revolve around the Arduino API, that h", "context": "microprocessor developer since 1984", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Death of Arduino?"}]}