HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: chris@gergo.tamu.edu (Chris King)
Subject: Re: Whither The Next ANSI Pascal Standard? (Breath of Life)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Geochemical and Environmental Research Group - TAMU
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 15:01:00 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.084321.25762@reed.edu>, orpheus@reed.edu (P. Hawthorne) writes...
>Is there a proposal for an extension of the ANSI Pascal standard yet? The
>dark forces of illegibility and crypticism (C and C++) would seem to be at
>a major advantage, facing no competition from their archrival Pascal...
> 
>Theus (orpheus@reed.edu)

I posted an article on ibm-digest (or whatever) and asked the question,
Why does there seem to be a large following of the C language? Since
the C language is no longer "more powerful" than pascal, or even other
languages.  

I got alot of responses defending C.  I noticed that none of the responders,
really know anything about the new pascal compilers. (for IBM PC Machines)
The most unchallengable claim about the C language was it's portability. It
still is the best for that, but not for long, since good portability simply
requires good planning. For Example the most ported program TeX is written
in Pascal.(actually pascal WEB but that is another story)

It seems that the resistance on both sides to move to the other simply stems
from peoples distaste for the unfamiliar. People who know C like C because
they know it. People who like Pascal know it and like it.

Dr. N. Wirth (pascal's creator) never intended for pascal to become a "real"
language, and without Borlands original turbo pascal 1.0 (which was easily
copied since it existed unprotected in a world of tight security) People
used it, and grew to like it.

Supposidly Modula-2 was suppose to be the language that Wirth intended to be
"a real language"  It's very much like pascal (but case sensitive) and was
designed to write operating systems.  I think now Wirth is working on some
OOP language called OBERON, but I'm not sure.

All in all, pascal will probably not change, since Wirth seems to have
dropped it. I think that pascal will always
be the language for application programmers and C will be the language of
system programmers. But then again what do I know. 

Chris King
Chris@gerga.tamu.edu
[72030,1304] via Compuserve
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
From: kjell@elixir.e.kth.se (Kjell Rilbe)
Subject: Re: Displaying many discrete screens
Organization: Dept. of EE, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 11:02:25 GMT

In article <2A91A4FC.10661@orion.oac.uci.edu> handbook@orion.oac.uci.edu (Handbook) writes:
>Hi,
>
>Can anyone suggest ways to display screenfuls of information to users, 
>without using a million and one writeln statements?  
>[Rest of problem deleted]

Maybe you could make your own screen output procedure? Are you running
TURBO Pascal on a PC? Then it's not very difficult to do it. 

Then you can store the text as a looooong string or ARRAY OF Char, and
design a format for moving to a new position on the screen &c.

For example character 1 could mean that the next two characters
are screen coordinates for the following text, until the next chr(1) ... &c.
And the string is terminated with a chr(0).

Mail me if you like the idea, but need help implementing it!

/Kjell Rilbe
From: gysin1@urz.unibas.ch
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: TV Focus in Dialog views
Date: 21 Aug 92 19:00:34 MET
Organization: University of Basel, Switzerland

In article <10202@vice.ICO.TEK.COM>, bobb@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine) writes:
> 
>   Here's the problem:
> 
>   I'm attempting to trap loss of focus events in Turbo Vision among
>   views within a dialog box.  I want to validate my numerical input
>   lines whenever the user moves off the focused input, either via
>   the keyboard or mouse.  
> 
>   I can trap a view's loss of focus by overriding the SetState()
>   method and looking for an sfFocused bit combined with a false
>   Enable.  The problem with this scheme is that SetState() is
>   ignorant of what event is causing the change in focus.  If I close
>   the dialog box with a cmCancel, SetState() is still called, and 
>   the input line attempts to validate itself even though the user
>   does not care about the value.  
> 
>   Keyboard events are not a problem, since they are automatically
>   routed to the focused event and can be handled by HandleEvent().
>   The positional events are where I'm getting hung.  
> 
>   Suggestions?
> 

	Well, I think the only thing you can do is to override the
HandleEvent-Method and redefine the function of kbTab and kbShiftTab (and -why
not ? - kbEnter). The user is probably already typing in new values and has
just to type the Tab-Key or Enter-Key to jump to the next InputLine. If he
moves the focus with the mouse, he doesn't need to care for the value, any
typing is ignored...

	For catching positional events, I suppose you should start at the
Dialog's event handler that manages the subviews....

Philipp Gysin

Gysin1@urz.unibas.ch     Basel, Switzerland





Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
From: rxk23@po.CWRU.Edu (Rohit Kashyap)
Subject: Regression analysis
Reply-To: rxk23@po.CWRU.Edu (Rohit Kashyap)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 22:12:45 GMT


I am writing a program in tp in order to do calculations of my experiment.
Using a cursor I mark on the plot the points on which I want to carry
out the curve fit to the equation  Y:=a + b*exp(-c*x);
I am using the marquardt levenberg algorithm to do so.  My program works
satisfactorily for all sets of data except for one set.  I tried to fit
this data in sigma plot and could do it but I am interested in knowing 
what could be the problem.  Its a trivial thing but baffles me.
You can repply to me personally.
Thanks in advance
Rxk.
-- 
rohit kashyap 2101 lennox road, #2
cleveland heights, OH 44106
ph: (216)-229-1437
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
From: dmurdoch@mast.queensu.ca (Duncan Murdoch)
Subject: Re: array index??
Organization: Queen's University
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 14:04:35 GMT

In article <g88d4938.6.713599806@giraffe.ru.ac.za> g88d4938@giraffe.ru.ac.za (MR GE DOYLE) writes:
> Oh. Is there anyway to declare and array of records so that you can index   
> the array by a string?

Not in standard Pascal, but you can get the same effect with some work using 
a TSortedCollection or TStrCollection from TP 6.0 TurboVision or with almost 
no work using a StringDict from Object Professional (for TP 5.5 or 6.0).  
OPro is a commercial library available from TurboPower Software; it sells 
for about $US 139 mail order.

Duncan Murdoch
dmurdoch@mast.queensu.ca
From: tech@crash.cts.com (Don Bontemps)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: I need a description of TPW
Date: 23 Aug 92 03:07:25 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: CTS Network Services (crash, ctsnet), El Cajon, CA



Can someone please give me a description of TPW?  What's it all
about?
From: S105728@umrvma.umr.edu ( Steve Poulsen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: HD type
Date: 21 Aug 92 06:35:04 GMT

How can I go about finding out the HD type by software method.  I mean, is
there an interrupt that will return the type of HD instaled [IDE or whatever].
Thanks for Help.

========================================      ,--,
  Steven P. Poulsen <S105728@UMRVMA>       ,'  '--,
  Student of Electrical Engineering        ---, ,'
  University of Missouri - Rolla            ,','
=======================================    , '
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
From: robinb@Newbridge.COM (Robin Blondon)
Subject: Request: PD Pascal parser or metrics tools
Organization: Newbridge Networks Corporation
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 20:22:52 GMT


Hello.
I need to write/obtain a program for computing McCabe cyclomatic complexity
metrics for Pascal source code.

If anyone knows of the existence (on the net) of one or more of the following:
1) A public domain program (source code) to compute McCabe cyclomatic
	complexity for Pascal source code files.
2) Public domain YACC code for a Pascal parser.
3) LALR grammar for Pascal.
I would be appreciate being informed.

Thanks.

 - Robin

EMail: robinb@Newbridge.COM
From: mholmes@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Mark Holmes)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: TV help /Hintline
Date: 16 Aug 92 17:02:11 GMT
Organization: University of Texas at San Antonio

In article <1992Aug15.183946.17879@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> mholmes@lonestar.utsa.edu (Mark L. Holmes) writes:
>When I installed the hint line the help key (F1) would not access the
>help utility.  I'm sure I'm forgetting something really simple but
>enlighten me anyway.

 Please disregard.  I did something REAL stupid and i fixed it... everything
works fine now.

Mark
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
From: dxc0904@ultb.isc.rit.edu (D.X. Chin )
Subject: PICTURES AND GRAPHICS LOADING
Summary: loading them and using them 
Originator: dxc0904@ultb
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Distribution: all
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 12:34:14 GMT

Hello All,
	I've been looking around and don't really know of any way to
	load up graphics images into my pascal programs. Formats like
	GIFS or etc. Also I don't know how to get past the 16 color
	barrier. I would be greatful for any help.

Thanks in advance...

Dower
dxc0904@ultb.rit.edu
From: Dean.Hill@p0.f40.n7101.z5.fidonet.org (Dean Hill)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Turbo Pascal -> Borland C++?????
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 06:59:00 GMT
Organization: FidoNet node 5:7101/40.0 - Layout de Marillac , Johannesburg

 -=> Quoting Holographic Banana to All <=-

 HB> HELP!
 HB> 
 HB> Is it possible to take Turbo Pascal .TPU files and somehow transfer
 HB> them to .OBJ files so Borland C++ can link with them????? Is there some
 HB> other way to link them with BC?  I'm using TPv6.0 and BCv3.0.

Get the new pascal compiler called Stony Brook Pascal +.  It allows .OBJ
files to be created.  I have no idea where to get it but it will help.  It
also provides C callable code and support Windows (Windows 3.0 not sure about
3.1).

Cheers
Dean


... File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)
--  
INTERNET: Dean.Hill@p0.f40.n7101.z5.fidonet.org
via:  THE CATALYST BBS in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
       (catpe.alt.za)   +27-41-34-1122 HST or +27-41-34-2859, V32bis & HST.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
From: gjp@sei.cmu.edu (George Pandelios)
Subject: Re: Whither The Next ANSI Pascal Standard? (Breath of Life)
Organization: Software Engineering Institute
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 13:01:41 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.084321.25762@reed.edu> orpheus@reed.edu (P. Hawthorne) writes:
>Is there a proposal for an extension of the ANSI Pascal standard yet? The
>dark forces of illegibility and crypticism (C and C++) would seem to be at
>a major advantage, facing no competition from their archrival Pascal...
>
>Theus (orpheus@reed.edu)

Be careful what you wish for, you may get it!  As a sad example, I 
will point to Modula-2, a simple, powerful, and elegant extension of Pascal 
(in my opinion; please no flames).  I believe that Modula-2 would have
routed the dark forces completely had it gotten into widespread public use.
Modula-2 was hot about 5-7 years ago.  Then the worst occurred - it got 
caught up in a long, drawn out standards committee wrangle that caused it 
to be overcome by events.  (Of course, there were other factors at work, too).
This is not to indict standards committees or standards in general.  This 
standards effort, though, effectively dispersed the momentum that was building
for the language.  A lot of folks (compiler companies, developers) waited to
see what the new standard would include.  After two years, they got tired of
waiting...

George
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
  George J. Pandelios				Internet:  gjp@sei.cmu.edu
  Software Engineering Institute		usenet:	   sei!gjp
  4500 Fifth Avenue				Voice:	   (412) 268-7186
  Pittsburgh, PA 15213				FAX:	   (412) 268-5758
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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	     Software Engineering Institute, its sponsors, customers, 
	     clients, affiliates, or Carnegie Mellon University.  In fact,
	     any resemblence of these opinions to any individual, living
	     or dead, fictional or real, is purely coincidental.  So there.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
From: newso584@Armstrong.EDU (Robert Newsome)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Updating
Date: 19 Aug 92 04:13:43 GMT
Organization: Armstrong State College, Savannah, GA

This question may be naive, but is there a way that I can add records to a
pascal file that already exits?  i.e. an open command instead of rewrite?
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
From: dmurdoch@mast.queensu.ca (Duncan Murdoch)
Subject: Re: Expanded memory and the heap...
Organization: Queen's University
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 13:26:23 GMT

In article <1992Aug15.163435.25855@iitmax.iit.edu> bruifal@elof.iit.edu (Falke Bruinsma) writes:
>
>I am writing a program that needs huge amounts of memory, at this moment 
>around 700K. Basically it is one huge tree and I add new records to it
>by the following command NEW(ptr); However around the 600K (you guessed it)
>I get a heap overflow... Since I do have expanded memory I as wondering if
>someone can help me write a unit that makes the expanded memory an extension
>of the heap. So that the program accesses expanded memory whenever the heap
>is full. 

It's not too difficult to put the EMS page frame into the heap, if 64K more 
memory would be enough; Compuserve has a program that does this, and also 
any other "high" memory that it can find.  That's usually not much more than 
100K though.

If you really want full access to your EMS, you need some sort of paging 
scheme.  I saw an ad once that a German company called OKSoft (sp?) had a 
package that patched itself into the TP compiler and made this automatic, 
but I've never heard anything more about that in the last year or so.

If you want to write it yourself, it's probably not practical to make the 
paging transparent.  The best approach is probably to use "handles"; instead 
of pointing to the thing you've allocated, they point to a record saying 
where to find it.  You write procedures to dereference a handle by checking 
the record and loading the thing if necessary.  It gets complicated if you 
want to be able to dereference several handles at once, because they might 
not all fit in memory at the same time.

A simpler approach which might well be good enough, is to keep your data on 
a stream.  Use Seek, Read and Write every time you want to access or change 
it.  Then you can have as much data as you have disk space, and if you've 
got enough EMS to hold the whole dataset, you can load it into an EMS stream 
and get the speed boost.  I've been using this method lately, and living 
with the relatively slow access.  I use a TempStream from my Streams
unit; that automatically chooses between RAM, EMS, XMS and disk, 
according to priorities you set.  Streams is available as garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/
turbovis/stream13.zip by ftp.

Duncan Murdoch
dmurdoch@mast.queensu.ca
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
From: amead@s.psych.uiuc.edu (Alan Mead)
Subject: Re: Network Programming....
Organization: UIUC Department of Psychology
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 07:10:07 GMT
Keywords: Netbios Netware TCP/IP

chris@gergo.tamu.edu (Chris King) writes:

>Does anyone out there know how to program networks with Turbo Pascal,
>and If so are you willing to share the information.

>Chris King
>Chris@gerga.tamu.edu


Hmm.  I was pondering this the other day.  If I understand correctly,
there are at least two ways to program network applications.  The
first is to replicate somethig like the network software (ie, your
code in intimately knowledgeable about the hardware and two copies
of your code communicate directly).  That's a f&*(&ing nightmare.

[There may be a middle ground I'm skippeing.]

On the other hand, I think most PC networks work by creating a shared
drive common to all computers.  So a simple application can be built
just by using a common file as a semaphore.

You pick a filename.  Your programs communicate by writing data to that
file on the shared disk.  Each program keeps track of the "status" of
the semaphore file and when its changed, that means the other copy is
trying to send a message.

Is this clear?  In the book _Advanced Turbo Pascal Techniques_ by
Ohlsen and Stoker, they present a chapter on network programming and
some sort of game.  I only glanced at it, however, not having a network
to experiment on :(

Oh, there is a serious problem with the semephore model (as I see it).
The DOS time stamp is actually only accurate to *TWO* seconds (they
fold all the time data into two bytes by only using 5 bits for the
seconds).  So I don't know what happens if the file gets updated more
often than once every 2 seconds.
From: skr@castle.ed.ac.uk (S Rushton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Displaying Images for Short Periods of Time
Date: 19 Aug 92 16:48:51 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

i"ve a problem...

i"m writing an experimental rig and need to display a stimulus
on the screen for a tightly controlled period of time.  i want
to write the program in turbo pascal on a 386 with a vga card.
what i normally do (this is the third machine i"ve had to do this
for) is: 
1) set colour x rgb values to same as background colour
2) draw the shape or whatever in colour x
3) change the address of the screen memory (switch out the
current screen and switch in another)
4) set colour x rgb values to 255,255,255 or whatever appropriate
5) wait for flyback
6) switch predrawn screen back in
7) start timer
8) wait till time period elapsed
9) switch out stimulus screen (and maybe switch in different
mask screen, also predrawn)

how do i do something equivalent on a 386/vga?  anyone got any
references or suggestions?

cheers

simon rushton
From: jnicholson@bowker.com (Jim Nicholson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Help : Music File Formats.
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 01:11:18 EDT
Organization: Bowker Electronic Publishing, New Providence NJ

ebolog@elaine.ee.und.ac.za (EDWIN BOLOGNA : THIRD) writes:

>
> Does anyone out there happen to have PAS, C, or ASM source code to decode
> .MOD, .SAM, .SND, or .ROL music formats.
>
Contact Mark Cox (m.j.h.cox@bradford.ac.uk) for Pascal and C routines that
will play .MOD files.

- Jim (jnicholson@bowker.com)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
From: rca@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Robert C Allender)
Subject: QUESTION: Turbo vs. Standard Pascal
Originator: rca@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 02:55:07 GMT

I have been helplessly thrown from the serene and secure pond of my PC to the 
unforgiving, terrorizing ocean of the campus mainframe.  Spoiled by DOS in my
youth, I now pay the price as I peer into the vast, black reaches of UNIX. I
find quickly that many of the Turbo Pascal functions that I knew and loved 
are no longer to be taken for granted.  The warm, blue interface now reduced 
to a chilling, black and grey command line...but without TP's ParamCount, how
do I read command-line arguments into my standard Pascal program? Say, for 
instance, that I just want to echo a file to stdout.  How do you get the 
<options> <filename> from:


csh> myprog <options> <filename>


into the program?

P.S.  By the by, does vi stand for "virtually impossible?" 

Thanks for help on either topic.
*****************************************************************************
* Rob Allender - rca@csd4.csd.uwm.edu                                       *
*****************************************************************************
* The one thing Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about   *
* humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very *
* obvious, as in "It's a nice day" or "You're very tall" or "Oh dear, you   *
* seem to have fallen down a 30-foot well, are you all right?"              *
*                                         - The Hitchhiker's Guide          *
*****************************************************************************
--
From: g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu (George C. Harrison, Norfolk State University)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: reHASHing of Reserved Words
Date: 20 Aug 92 18:25:10 EDT

I posted this about 10 days ago and had only ONE reply (which I appreciate but
was incorrect).  I am SURE that someone in the Pasqual world knows the answer:

I want a perfect hash function for strings of Pascal reserved words.  A perfect
has function is a "simple function" normally using mod, div, length of string,
and Ord of some of the characters.  I want such a function to map directly from
the 36 Pascal reserved words onto the numbers 0 .. 35 WITHOUT COLLISION.
 
George
 
George C. Harrison, Prof. of CS, Norfolk State University
g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu
From: miller@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Jeff Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Turbo Pascal 6.0 OOP Question
Date: 17 Aug 92 17:49:17 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

Is it possible to pass an object's method as a procedure parameter?
The compiler tells me I am making an illegal function reference
each time I try to do this.

Here is a crude code-like sketch of what I am trying to do,
although I know there are other errors here:

Type Generic(Object)
   Function X : Real; Virtual;
   Function Y : Real; Virtual;
   End;

Type RealFunc = Function : Real;

Function Integrate(LowX, HighX : Real; Func : RealFunc);
Begin
{ Function integration stuff from Numerical Recipes.
  The relevant point is that it calls Func, the function to be integrated. }
End;

Begin
Writeln(Integrate(0,1,Object1.X));
Writeln(Integrate(0,1,Object1.Y));
End.

At the point of the writeln's,
The compiler tells me I have an illegal function reference.

If I put in "Far" up by the "Virtual"s, it stops there saying
that is not an OK thing to do.

Anyone know how to accomplish my goal here?
Thanks for any info.

Jeff Miller
jomiller@ucsd.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal