PASCAL In a Nutshell

The Glorious History of Pascal

Back in 1970, when bell-bottoms were cool and computers filled entire rooms, a Swiss computer scientist named Niklaus Wirth thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if students could learn programming with a language that actually made sense?”

And thus, Pascal was born—a structured, strongly typed, and readable programming language that was perfect for education and beyond. It was designed to teach good programming practices before spaghetti code became a universal issue.

Pascal vs. The Competition

Back in the day, Pascal had to compete with Fortran, COBOL, and C. Here’s how they stacked up:

Pascal on 9-Bit Computers (Like the Apple II)

One of Pascal’s biggest claims to fame was its presence on the Apple II. Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs was a huge fan of structured programming and made sure Pascal was the go-to language for the Apple Lisa and Macintosh.

Pascal was also the language of choice for early Macintosh development, before C took over. If you’ve ever written old-school Apple software, chances are, you did it in Pascal.

Pascal 101: The Basics

1. Hello, World! in Pascal

1
2
3
4

program HelloWorld;
begin
  writeln('Hello, Pascal World!');
end.

2. Variables and Loops

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

program LoopExample;
var
  i: Integer;
begin
  for i := 1 to 5 do
    writeln('This is line ', i);
end.

3. Functions in Pascal

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

function Square(x: Integer): Integer;
begin
  Square := x * x;
end;

begin
  writeln('Square of 5 is ', Square(5));
end.

The Famous Pascal Bubble Sort

Sorting algorithms are the bread and butter of programming, so here’s a Bubble Sort in Pascal:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

program BubbleSortDemo;
var
  arr: array[1..5] of Integer = (5, 3, 8, 1, 2);
  i, j, temp: Integer;
begin
  for i := 1 to 4 do
    for j := 1 to 5 - i do
      if arr[j] > arr[j + 1] then
      begin
        temp := arr[j];
        arr[j] := arr[j + 1];
        arr[j + 1] := temp;
      end;

  for i := 1 to 5 do
    writeln(arr[i]);
end.

Enter Borland Delphi: Pascal Goes Modern

Pascal was great, but by the 1990s, it needed a serious upgrade. That’s when Borland Delphi stepped in, bringing:

• Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)
• A Visual UI Framework
• A Fast Compiler

Delphi revitalized Pascal, making it a powerful tool for Windows application development. It’s still around today, proving that Pascal refuses to die!

Wrapping Up

Pascal might not be as popular as Python or JavaScript today, but its legacy lives on in modern programming languages. If you ever want to understand structured programming, Pascal is a great place to start.

So go ahead—fire up an old Apple II emulator, write some Pascal, and experience programming history firsthand! 🚀

Key Takeaways

• Pascal was created by Niklaus Wirth in 1970 as an easy-to-read structured programming language.
• It was heavily used in academia and early Apple II and Macintosh development.
• Pascal was readable, structured, and beginner-friendly, unlike C.
• Borland Delphi modernized Pascal with Object-Oriented Programming and Visual UI Design.
• Pascal is still used today in some niche applications (and by hardcore enthusiasts).

References

• Pascal on Wikipedia
• Niklaus Wirth Biography
• Borland Delphi
• Pascal Bubble Sort Example