Technical Notes Database
TN1317D.txt TP6 Marketing QNAs
Category :Pascal
Platform :All
Product :Turbo Pascal 6.0
Description:
Turbo Pascal 6.0
Questions and Answers
Draft 3 - Oct 22, 1990
I. General Questions
A. Who is the target audience for Turbo Pascal 6.0?
Turbo Pascal 6.0 is targeted to the hundreds of thousands
of MS-DOS application programmers who want to create
professional looking applications but don't have time to
write the code from scratch. Turbo Pascal 6.0 with Turbo
Vision brings sophisticated application development
within reach.
B. What are the major new features of Turbo Pascal 6.0?
The most important features of Turbo Pascal 6.0 are the
Turbo Vision object-oriented application framework and
the new Integrated Development Environment (IDE). These
new features will increase productivity of application
programmers using Turbo Pascal. In addition, Turbo
Pascal Professional now includes a Turbo Drive compiler
that can compile much larger programs using extended
memory.
C. What is new in the Integrated Development Environment
(IDE)?
The new Integrated Development Environment includes
multi-file, multi-window editing with full mouse support
and a macro language for customization. You can also set
conditional breakpoints and view a register window while
debugging. The new IDE includes Turbo Help, a hyper text
system with help on the entire system as well as over 200
sample programs that can be automatically cut and paste
into an editor and compiled.
D. What has changed in the compiler from version 5.5 to 6.0?
In addition to Turbo Vision and the new Integrated
Development Environment (IDE) several changes have been
made to the Pascal compiler itself in Turbo Pascal 6.0 to
give programmers a more powerful development system. We
have added inline assembler so that you can mix Pascal
and assembly language easily. Turbo Pascal 6.0 now also
generate 80286 code to take advantage of instructions on
80286 and 80386 processors for faster performance. The
compiler supports privacy in objects. This allows you to
declare object methods and fields as private therefore
providing better encapsulation. Also, there is an
extended syntax compiler directive ($X+) that allows you
to ignore the return value of a function call treating
thereby using a function as a procedure call. Lastly,
Turbo Pascal Professional includes the Turbo Drive
compiler that allows you to compile very large programs
by using extended memory.
E. Does Turbo Pascal 6.0 use VROOMM?
Turbo Pascal 6.0's automatic overlay manager is based on
the same technology as VROOMM (Virtual Real-Time
Object-Oriented Memory Manager) used in Quattro Pro,
Paradox and C++. Future versions of Turbo Pascal may
incorporate all of the VROOMM technology.
F. How large a program can you create with the Turbo Drive
compiler?
The Turbo Drive command line compiler can use as much
extended memory as is available. Therefore you can
compile programs that are several megabytes in size
without removing debug information. However, the
programs you create still run in real mode and therefore
use Turbo Pascal's automatic overlay manager to run in
640K.
G. What is Turbo Drive?
Turbo Drive is a core Borland technology used to create
applications that break the 640K DOS barrier by using
extended memory. Turbo Drive is used in Turbo Pascal
Professional as well as Turbo Debugger 286 and 386 and
Paradox 3.5.
II. Turbo Vision Questions
A. What is an application framework?
An application framework is the basic architecture of
your program, already developed, with all the building
blocks inter-linked. Because Turbo Vision is
object-oriented your applications automatically inherit a
powerful, extensible user interface. The application
framework includes an object library with support for
event handling, user interface management and data
management.
Turbo Vision is a major step forward that brings
sophisticated user interfaces, including mouse support,
windows and context senstive help, to DOS programmers,
without requiring complex programming. The end result is
that programmers can create better programs in less time.
Another advantage is that the Turbo Vision architecture
is much easier to extend since the framework of every
application is already in place.
B. What type of data management objects are built-in?
Turbo Pascal 6.0 includes collections objects as well as
streams that allow you to create persistent objects. All
of the objects included in Turbo Vision can be stored on
disk automatically using streams. The supplied objects
can be used as the basis for more sophisticated
user-written objects. In the future, a version of the
Paradox Engine will also be accessible from Turbo Pascal.
C. How large is Turbo Vision?
Turbo Vision includes over 50 objects and 350 methods.
Since Turbo Vision is written in Turbo Pascal with
assembly language it compiles to about 40K for a typical
application. The result is that Turbo Vision is not only
productive, but extremely efficient.
D. How will people learn to program with Turbo Vision?
We have included a tutorial as well as reference
documentation on programming with Turbo Vision. The
Turbo Help system includes detailed coverage of Turbo
Vision. There are also many sample programs included on
disk. Programmers new to object-oriented programming may
wish to refer to many of the third party books that
feature more detailed tutorials on Turbo Vision
programming.
E. Are there any royalty fees or runtime charges with Turbo
Vision?
No. Programs written using Turbo Vision can be
distributed without royalty fees or runtime charges.
F. Are there other application frameworks for MS-DOS?
Turbo Vision is the first application framework designed
for MS-DOS. Other systems, such as MacApp on the
Macintosh, are available on graphical systems.
G. How does Turbo Vision effect third party vendors?
Turbo Vision provides a solid foundation and rich
architecture for third party vendors to build on. We
expect that there will be a large marketplace for
high-level application objects including communications,
electronic mail, databases, spreadsheets, specialized
financial, scientific and engineering objects and so on.
All of these can be built on top of Turbo Vision to allow
programmers to concentrate on their specific application
domain and not on what it takes to put it on the screen
and fit it into their own application architectures.
Turbo Vision is the key component that will allow this
kind of extensibility.
H. Will Turbo Vision be moved to the Turbo C++ platform?
Borland is committed to providing application frameworks
across a
variety of languages and platforms.
I. Will Turbo Vision be available for Windows?
Although the architecture and user interface of a Turbo
Vision program is similar to that of a Windows program,
Turbo Vision has been optimized for creating character
based applications. A similar approach could be used for
Windows though it would have to be optimized for a
graphical environment.
III. Other Questions
A. Is the Paradox Engine compatible with Turbo Pascal?
We are committed to making the Paradox Engine compatible
with Turbo Pascal. This will give Turbo Pascal
programmers additional power for creating applications
that have sophisticated data management requirements.
B. Does Turbo Pascal support Microsoft Windows or OS/2
development?
Turbo Pascal 6.0 does not currently support Windows or
OS/2 development. We plan to support both platforms in
future releases of the product and we have committed
significant development resources toward this end. We
will first deliver products for Windows and follow with
products for OS/2. Both Windows and OS/2 are emerging
platforms that are a key part of our Turbo language
strategy. Programmer's using Turbo Vision today will be
creating applications that have the same architecture as
is found on Windows and Presentation Manager.
C. Are Turbo Pascal objects compatible with Turbo C++?
Currently Turbo Pascal objects are not compatible with
C++. We are examining ways to improve compatibility
between Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ to allow programmers
to use a common object format.
D. Does Turbo Pascal support multiple inheritance?
Turbo Pascal does not support multiple inheritance and
thus an object can only inherit from one ancestor object.
Although multiple inheritance adds flexibility, it also
adds complexity for the programmer. Single inheritance
provides the greatest amount of reusability with the
least amount of additional complexity.
IV. Pricing and Availability Questions
A. When will Turbo Pascal 6.0 be available?
Turbo Pascal 6.0 is shipping immediately!
B. What is the retail pricing for Turbo Pascal 6.0?
Turbo Pascal $149.95
Turbo Pascal Professional $299.95
(includes Turbo Pascal, Turbo Drive Compiler, Turbo
Debugger, Turbo Assembler, Turbo Profiler)
Educational Pricing (Scholar Program)
Turbo Pascal $39.95
C. What is the price of the Runtime Library?
The Runtime Library, including source code to Turbo
Vision, is $199.95. Current owners of the Runtime
Library can upgrade for $99.95.
D. What is the upgrade path for current Turbo Pascal
customers?
We are offering registered of any version of Turbo Pascal
an upgrade price of $69 for Turbo Pascal 6.0 and $95 for
Turbo Pascal Professional.
* * *
11/27/90clb
Reference:
7/16/98 4:35:44 PM
Last Modified: 01-SEP-99