The Famous 70s Era Apple Pascal Poster [pdf]

 (us.archive.org)

12 points | by OhMeadhbh9 hours ago

6 comments

  • tasty_freeze3 hours ago
    I first learned programming on a Wang 2200 computer in 1978, which used the Wang BASIC dialect. Wang BASIC was both very primitive (single letter or letter+number names, no local scope, fixed width strings) and very powerful (built array operations, including MAT SORT).

    A year or two later I got a book from the library on PASCAL. I recall skimming through it at first and thinking: is this real code or pseudocode? I couldn't believe, eg, that one could test for set inclusion with a built-in primitive.

  • OhMeadhbh9 hours ago
    From the Internet Archive comes a PDF of a poster that was popular among my friends group in the late 70s. Most of the crew I ran with had experienced "more advanced" languages than the BASIC that was common as the default on microcomputers of the day. Pascal was definitely a popular option and this poster was just darn beautiful in that 70s sort of way.

    And here's the main link for the poster with metadata and a few download options: https://archive.org/details/pascal-poster-v-3-a-1

  • kristianp7 hours ago
    If it was from 1979, does that mean it is this one for the Apple II: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pascal

    It was based on USCD Pascal, which compiled to p-code. It required 64kB of RAM and was bundled with the Apple II Language Card, which had 16kB of RAM [1]. The card cost $495 initially, which is about $2,200 in today's money. [2] It didn't fit on one floppy, so required some disk swapping.

    [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150404233355/http://apple2info...

    [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20150405002840/http://apple2info...

    • wduquette6 hours ago
      Yes it was. I used UCSD Pascal on a Heathkit version of the PDP-11, Apple Pascal, and another UCSD variant on an HP 9836 (IIRC) micro, and I’m pretty sure we had a copy of that poster.
  • mitch-crn9 hours ago
    Very nice.

    Collection of Unix/Linux pictures - Because http://crn.hopto.org/pics/unix/

  • rerdavies8 hours ago
    Just finished a losing battle with C++ grammar. I'm envious. :-(
  • AnimalMuppet7 hours ago
    Ah, the "train track" diagrams. I saw them in a book, not on a poster, but it blew me away that all the language was just right there.

    One thing, though: I seem to remember there being more diagrams than that. Is my memory failing, or is this poster not the whole syntax?