Pascal for small machines

Apple Pascal

Apple III Pascal books

www.1000bit.net

Apple /// Pascal - Introduction, Filer, and Editor

Apple III Pascal - Programmer's Manual Volume 1

Apple III Pascal - Programmer's Manual Volume 2

Apple III Pascal 1.1 Update

http://www.sageandstride.org/ Sage p-System books

Remarks on Apple III Pascal

Andreas Siegenthaler, Switzerland  

Pascal Version 2.0 for the Apple III which is mentioned in the
Apple Pascal history document of David T. Craig 
 
There were no full product Apple III Pascal 2.0 . In the Pascal Toolkit Manual is a reference
to a Compiler 2.0 and in the Washington Apple Pie (wap.org) Disk Library there is a Pascal Compiler 2.0
Disk listed for the Apple III.
 
There existed an Pascal Compiler 2.0 Update only trough the Apple
Workbench Series. But this update is very rare and his importance for the III was finally limited due to the late
introduction. This time all relevant Apple III software was already written and compiled by the former 1.x versions!

 As a further remark to the Craig document, the SANE unit for extended floating-point arithmetik was available
separate trough Workbench and could be added to Pascal 1.1 . The 1.2 Update was particular for supporting
the Pronto debugger and the Pascal Tool Kit Tools and for improved support of developing Apple II Programs
on the Apple III which was common in this time for commercially software development. The code files weren't
compatible between Pascal II and III, but on Pascal III you could set a compiler option to produce Apple II code.
The main purpose of the compiler 2.0 was for a further improvement of Apple II Pascal software
development, maybe to add Pascal 1.3 compatibility. But this is an assumption I couldn't find any release notes
for the compiler 2.0.

On searching for more background information about the UCSD Pascal history I saw your webpage for the p-system. Unfortunately almost no information for the Apple III Pascal version is available on the internet. As an Apple collector and owner of a complete Apple III System I know the following Pascal versions for the Apple /// :

Apple III Pascal 1.0
Apple III Pascal 1.1
Apple III Pascal 1.2

The version numbers although similar, were not equal to the Apple II Pascal versions and there were no Apple III Pascal version 2.0 ! The version 1.0 was the original product from 1981 when the Apple III was launched. Version 1.1 appeared as a revised Pascal edition for the Apple III in a new box in 1983. The manuals were the same as for version 1.0 but error corrected and with new designed covers. An 1.1 Update manual was included as a delta guide. Apple III Pascal were delivered on three 5.25" floppies. The version 1.2 appeared in 1984 as a 1.2 Update through the Apple Workbench developer tools series (yellow disk labels). Through the Workbench series also a Pascal debugger and several other tools were available for the Apple III. The 1.2 Update only included the Files that changed from version 1.1 . The version 1.2 is in my knowledge the last version of Apple III Pascal. Since the Apple III line was ceased in April 1984, also the development of Apple III software were ceased around that time.

Unknown is on which p-machine version the Apple III Pascal is based. But in contrast to Apple II Pascal which had a complete p-code interpreter OS that replaced the otherwise used DOS, on the Apple III the p-machine ran on top of SOS, the Apple III Operating System which controls all. The device, file and memory management and interrupt handling. It also was the first OS which did all I/O through installable uniform device drivers. The Apple III was conceived as a business system and had far more memory than the actual Apple II models. The most spread configurations were 128K or 256K RAM which was a huge memory amount for an 8-bit computer system in the early 80's. But the SOS kernel itself already used about 40K of the RAM without the device drivers. Therefore all software written for the Apple III, no matter if written in Pascal, Cobol, Business Basic or Assembly language had to use the SOS for all hardware access. This as a short description about the special charateristic of the Apple III architecture.

 

 

 

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