Softech p-System for Macintosh

Nigel Williams nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com
Sat May 14 23:23:57 CDT 2016


AEK recently uploaded this to Bitsavers (thanks Al!):

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/Softech/Macintosh_UCSD_Pascal.zip

It was a surprise to re-learn of the port of UCSD p-System done for
compact Macintosh. The diskettes were labelled:

Softech Microsystems
MacAdvantage UCSD Pascal
UCSD Pascal 1 : V010.1B  <-- diskette 1
UCSD Pascal 2 : V009.1B  <-- diskette 2


It is not quite like the usual ports where the p-System ran
stand-alone with its unique look-and-feel; this Macintosh port uses
the System/Finder to host Applications that appear to mirror the
functionality of the integrated programs from the p-System, so the
editor is Editor, Pascal compiler is Compiler and so on. however, the
Editor has Bill Duvall from Consulair Corporation in the About box.
Bill/Consulair would later release the Lightspeed Pascal / C compilers
(that were eventually sold to Symantec).

This port dates from late 1984, and is running with System 1.1 and Finder 1.1g

The p-System interpreter is sitting in the Pascal Folder along with a
"Pascal Runtime", I guess similar to the usual p-System BIOS.

Some screenshots here running via the vMac emulator:

https://goo.gl/photos/UFPSru2aeTohQiLQ6


There are several posts on usenet about these early p-Systems ports,
and some commentary about the Duvall Editor:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/fa.info-mac/JYqRwMNV1Y8/iMYwCb_I3XYJ

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/fa.info-mac/lMjtNcbIkBw/oUwObvvddIwJ

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/fa.info-mac/meJU-ITiDa0/U2dqBWKUK7wJ


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