[yesenadam]

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..

[badsectoracula]

$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.

[tomcam]

You do remember wrong. It was $49.95. It changed my life.

[noir_lord]

Mine too.

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.

[yesenadam]

Ah yes, I think it was $70 here in Australia.

[dave84]

I got a copy of Delphi 3 on the cover CD of PC Plus magazine in ‘99. Changed my 15 year old life.

[barrkel]

Huw Collingbourne shifted the needle on a lot of young UK & Ireland programmers, IMO.

[dave84]

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.

[pjmlp]

I paid 100 euros in today's money for Turbo Pascal for Windows 1.5, the last TP version before Delphi got released.

Likewise I paid 150 euros in today's money for Turbo C++ for Windows a couple of years later.

Borland products were king for small business, but then they decided to switch focus to corporate users, and the rest is history.

As side note, Delphi and C++ Builder are still quite loved in Germany, several companies keep using them, and there is at least an yearly conference.