#pascal

2025-12-16

I took a first stab at isometric maps on a 386. The new direction definitely makes things more challenging... and I'm not sure yet if I can pull it off.

youtube.com/watch?v=2JZ35t_8q1A

#gamedev #retrogamedev #retrocomputing #retrogaming #msdos #indiedev #devlog #pascal #turbopascal

2025-12-14

RE: oldbytes.space/@amoroso/115706

Speaking of Jack Crenshaw's "Let's Build a Compiler", Ahmed Thabet reformatted the series and published a prettified and browsable version. Nice.

xmonader.github.io/letsbuildac

#compiler #pascal #m68k

2025-12-13

I've now also completed part 2 of "Factory" - Day 10 of #AdventOfCode in #TurboPascal on the #Xi8088 !

It takes about 25 minutes to run and was quite the challenge to write, I had to learn more than I was prepared to.

But with it, that's all 12 days completed, all in #Pascal, all on the #i8088.

What a journey! Thank you so much, @ericwastl

Oh, and I'm never doing Advent of Code in Pascal again! That was really a dumb idea 😅

#Retrocomputing #DOScember

The monitor of the Xi8088 showing info and the end result of the second part of Advent of code day 10 part 2
Jazz de Ville – Groovejdv_groove@mastodon.nl
2025-12-12
Cover: Pascal - Arcipelago
2025-12-12

Between 1988 and 1995 Jack Crenshaw posted on Usenet "Let's Build a Compiler", a tutorial series on writing a Pascal compiler that generates 68K Assembly. 35 years later Eli Bendersky revisited the series and rewrote the compiler in Python to generate WebAssembly.

eli.thegreenplace.net/2025/rev

#compilers #pascal #python #wasm #m68k

2025-12-12

I just realized using #Pascal would have been better suited for an #Easter themed challenge than for a #Christmas one 😂

2025-12-12

I just completed "Christmas Tree Farm" - Day 12 of #AdventOfCode in #TurboPascal. Only in #DOSBox for now, until I get back home and run it on the real #Xi8088 hardware.

I can already tell that parsing the input file will take a lot longer than solving!

(No spoiler in the picture)

#Retrocomputing #Pascal #DOScember

Screen capture of DOSBox showing a small section of the Turbo Pascal code I used for the input parsing of today's Advent of Code puzzle.
2025-12-11

I just completed "Reactor" - Day 11 of #AdventOfCode in #TurboPascal on the #Xi8088

Thankfully, the problem is constrained enough that the memoization cache is actually very small. This is a good thing for our little 8088.

Both parts solve really fast, but the first version of my input parsing procedure was taking a whopping 42 seconds 😅 I just couldn't leave it like that.

#Retrocomputing #Pascal #DOScember

Screen of the Xi8088 computer showing today's Advent of Code puzzle solutions.
2025-12-10

Look, ma! No recursion! But no part 2 yet either...

I completed part 1 of "Factory" - Day 10 of #AdventOfCode in #TurboPascal on the #Xi8088

I'm pleased with my solution, where parsing the input file takes longer than solving (12.30 vs 10.39 sec).
It's built around a short but non-trivial procedure written with the help of a StackOverflow post. Spoiler in picture.

Now, it looks like I have a few things to learn before I can attempt to solve part 2...

#Retrocomputing #Pascal #DOScember

An old LCD monitor displaying the code for today's Advent of Code in the Turbo Pascal IDE. The view is centered on a procedure named 'HammingNext'.
2025-12-09

I just completed "Movie Theater" - Day 9 of #AdventOfCode in #TurboPascal on the #Xi8088 and I'm quite proud of my solution!

I got the logic right for part 2 nearly immediately but plain brute force was way too slow: I had to crank up the CPU speed in #DOSbox quite a bit just to test it.

Doing some precalc (likely not the same as what other people did 😉) on the input and re-thinking data structure helped a huge lot, going from 1 hour to less than 4 minutes!

#Retrocomputing #Pascal #DOScember

Advent of Code solutions for day 9 shown on an old LCD monitor.
An Xi8088 computer is visible.
Ƶ̗̥̎ POP2krsnufkin_vc
2025-12-09

Today I started reading an interesting book!

Software Tools in by Kernighan Plauger.

I hope I can finish chapter 1 tomorrow. I'm doing the exercises in Uxntal for the Uxnomicon wiki.

So far I'm really liking the Pascal examples and the book in general.

uxnomicon.miraheze.org/wiki/So

2025-12-08

Oh my goodness, I did it. What a day!

I spent the entire day to solve "Playground" - Day 8 of AdventOfCode in #TurboPascal on the #Xi8088 and I had a blast!

I got all the logic right on first try for both parts, but the big question was: How do you sort up to a million entries on a machine that can't even store ten times less in memory, in a language where your arrays are less than 64KiB ? 🤯

Obvious answer is "you don't", but then what? 😅

So happy!

#Retrocomputing #Pascal #DOScember

Closeup of the screen showing the end result of the second part of today's Advent of Code.
2025-12-07

I just completed "Laboratories" - Day 7 of #AdventOfCode in #TurboPascal on the #Xi8088 computer.

Part 2 fits inside the same loop as part 1 with very few modifications.

Then I could make it read the file line by line as it goes, instead of building the entire map in memory.

By keeping track of the left and right limits of potential change, I could also reduce the memory accesses.

With 1.3 second of total runtime, I'm very happy with my solution today !

#Retrocomputing #Pascal #DOScember

The turbo Pascal IDE showing the 'Compilation successful' dialog box in front of the code of today's Advent of Code problem.
2025-12-06

Det ska tydligen bli rock ikväll. 🎸🔊🥁 #pascal #debaser

Rockbandet Pascal soundcheckar på Debaser
2025-12-06

I just completed "Trash Compactor" - Day 6 of #AdventOfCode in #Turbo Pascal on the #Xi8088 computer.

Once again, we face input lines too long to fit in a 'string' and numbers too big to fit in a 'longint' (these are only 32-bit signed), but I'm getting used to all that so in the end, today was pretty much uneventful.

Let's take a moment to thank our very good friend the #i8087 artithmetic coprocessor for its help!

#RetroComputing #Pascal #DOScember

Close-up picture of the Intel 8087 arithmetic coprocessor on the Xi8088 board.

@CGM I never heard of #SASL! I have always been a huge #Wirth fan. Did tons of real-life work in #Pascal, moved through #Modula2 up to, finally, #Oberon2. Had such fond memories of it that I tried to use it last year for #AdventOfCode and learned that it was not nearly as good as I remembered. Have you tried #Racket (a kind of #Scheme)? It’s not for me but it’s interesting. Used it in a job interview once. Your description of how flow control is defined in #TCL really reminds me of Racket. I’m learning #RustLang and having the kind of #Macros you get in #Lisp and Scheme is another reason Rust is so enjoyable.

Jazz de Ville – Groovejdv_groove@mastodon.nl
2025-12-05
Cover: Pascal - Arcipelago

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