[fpc-other] [fpc-pascal] Quick Modern Object Pascal Introduction, for Programmers

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Luca Olivetti wrote:
> El 20/06/16 a les 11:44, Mark Morgan Lloyd ha escrit:
> 
>> A private online service I use has somebody who still bears the scars of
>> Olivetti attempting to write an operating system in (strict, unexpanded)
>> Pascal.
> 
> Oh, the memories (and, no, I'm not related). My first job was in one of 
> Olivetti's factories where they used such a system for production 
> control (they ate their own dog food).
> I was programming the PLC (well, part of it) and it had to keep in 
> memory two hours worth of planning since that was the time the computer 
> needed to reboot when it crashed ;-)
> 
> I doubt it was plain pascal though: according to this page
> 
> http://www.storiaolivetti.it/percorso.asp?idPercorso=564
> 
> it was concurrent pascal
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrent_Pascal
> 
> (even if I'm not sure the wikipedia page refers to the same thing).

I think he said it was mid-70s, but I got the impression that it was 
very much ISO-standard Pascal and it didn't have facilities such as 
assembler interfacing. On the other hand I think Concurrent Pascal was 
one of Brinch Hansen's earlier attempts, and like Pascal itself it might 
have taken a couple of iterations to get right.

The bottom line was that it was an unmitigated disaster :-)

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]