UI Museum: Turbo Pascal 7.1
All screenshots for this post were made by Rakhim Davletkaliev.
About:
Menu
File. It’s interesting that it was F2 to save, F3 to open, even though the order is already New, Open, Save — as on the GUI systems:
Edit. These keyboard shortcuts for clipboard were much better than Ctrl+K,K and Ctrl+K,B from Turbo Pascal 5.0:
Search:
Run:
Compile. It’s always bothered me that Run, which you always wanted, had a more complex shortcut (Ctrl+F9) than Make (F9), which you never wanted by itself.
Destination: Memory. An interesting menu item where the value is displayed inline.
Debug:
Tools:
Options:
Environment (we’ll get to the windows behind these items later):
Window:
Help:
File, Edit, whatever, Window, Help — Borland has copied this standard from the GUI OSes even though they didn’t have to. It was nice.
Shortcut menu:
File dialogs
Open:
Save:
Change directory (in MS-DOS, there always was a current directory):
Printer setup:
Window management
Cascade mode:
Notice how the active window has a double border.
Tile mode:
Window list:
No windows. Notice the background:
Working with code
A simple program:
Parameters:
Arguments (what is parameters, then?):
Compile-time error message:
Compiled successfully:
Information:
The full-stop at the end of a program is a nice quirk of Pascal.
Go to line number:
Find:
Message box:
Notice that the main window still has the double border when a dialog is open.
Replace:
Find procedure:
Debugging
Step-by-step:
Add breakpoint:
Breakpoints:
Call stack. Not a dialog box, so the unfocused main window gets the single border:
CPU:
Add watch:
Watches:
Output:
Evaluate and Modify:
Messages. I never knew what Messages were, and neither did the school teachers. And you couldn’t have just googled it:
Help
Pascal help:
The language syntax:
No search. Functions organised alphabetically in strange groups:
Error messages, by number:
There also was Turbo Help, the help system available from dialog boxes. For mysterious reasons it looked very different from the main Help:
Setup
Preferences:
Editor options. Editors of 2017 have so many options that you need search just for them:
Mouse options. This was not system-wide:
Startup options:
Colours. My favourite window:
Compiler options:
Memory sizes:
Linker:
Debugger:
Directories:
Tools:
Previous exhibit: Norton Commander 5.0
