The DOS TP compiler was still at the heart of Delphi 1 supported an inline assembler and reference-based class system, code generator, etc. in less than 43k lines of assembler (it was entirely written in assembler).
(32-bit Delphi 2 switched to a C-based compiler originally written by Peter Sollich. I maintained the front end on that compiler for 6 years; PS followed AH to MS.)
To be clear, I was only involved in 2006-12 time period. I got a lot of use out of TP 6 and Delphi 2 when I was learning, which is a significant part of the reason I ended up at Borland.
That was my first language after BASIC - I loved it!
I may be remembering this wrong, but it seemed virtually free - it was about $100 when its competitors and most software was $500+. That was in about 1986. The only way to get a manual was to buy the software. Another world..
$99 was for Delphi up until version 5 for the cheapest version, which most likely explains why it was very popular among solo shareware developers.
Sadly that market was abandoned by Borland when they decided to go after enterprises and renamed themselves to Inprise and their prices skyrocketed after that.
Started with ZX BASIC then when we got a second hand PC I switched to TP - Pascal was and is an excellent first language, in that sense it met it's design goals well.
Definitely. I owe him a lot. The late Wilf Hey also for his language columns, I remember following along with his Eiffel, Prolog and Smalltalk series as a youngster.
(32-bit Delphi 2 switched to a C-based compiler originally written by Peter Sollich. I maintained the front end on that compiler for 6 years; PS followed AH to MS.)