Virtual Pascal

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Virtual Pascal is a free 32-bit Pascal compiler, IDE and debugger for OS/2 and Microsoft Windows, with some limited Linux support. The current version is v2.1.279, and although it had a wide user base in the late nineties, VP has not evolved significantly for several years, and the owner (VP is proprietary but freeware) declared in 2005 that development had ceased. There has been pressure from some users for the compiler source to be made into open-source software. So far this has not been done, the main reasons being:

The compiler source is mostly written in Intel assembler and is complex
Part of the run-time library is proprietary to Borland
Documentation and help being maintained with expensive proprietary tools

The compiler is compatible with Turbo Pascal, Borland Delphi and Free Pascal , although language- and RTL-compatibility is limited for features introduced after Delphi v2 and FPC 1.0.x. VP was primarily useful for the following purposes:

Easily port existing 16-bit Turbo Pascal programs to 32 bits
Port existing 16-bit OWL programs to 32-bit Windows
Write console (text-mode) programs for several platforms
Pascal development using the 32-bit Windows API
Learn object-oriented programming

Significant features of Virtual Pascal include:

Text-mode IDE
Debugger of VP is built directly into the IDE and is reminiscent of Turbo Debugger
Fast compilation times
Tool-chain written mostly in Intel Assembler