[WalterBright]

> Java was the original "write once, run anywhere" language

That crown properly belongs to the UCSD P-System, which was the Java of the 1980's. It was the same idea as Java - compilation to a bytecode which an interpreter ran. It failed because the interpreter performance penalty was too high.

Java also started out as an interpreter, which made it too slow. Steve Russell of Symantec invented a JIT for it, and like the lumbering Allison-engined P-51 getting a supercharged Merlin, it brought Java to life.

[nsxwolf]

I also wonder how much the difficulty of sharing files between different systems due to different disk formats played a role in its failure.

You could run p-system on a lot of machines - Apple II, IBM PC, TI-99/4A, PDP11... but how would you (and why would you) distribute your code across machines with such different storage media?

[WalterBright]

Oh, people found ways to transfer files. BBSs were one way, the Kermit program another, NNTP newsgroups, etc.

I transferred files from my PDP-11 (8" floppies) to my PC (5.25" floppies) using Kermit.

[nsxwolf]

Maybe it was more of a problem of not being able to think of a use case for running a pCode program meant for a 512K PDP11 on a 48K Apple II+. A bit ahead of its time.

[WalterBright]

It was definitely ahead of its time, but I and others tried to use it. It was just too slow, and you couldn't make competitive products with it.

[hota_mazi]

I don't know about that.

I coded in UCSD-P quite a bit (and played a few games written in it, Wizardry on the Apple 2 anyone?).

But UCSD-Pascal never reached a tiny fraction of the audience that Turbo Pascal did.

[WalterBright]

Turbo Pascal certainly had more users, but it was never "run anywhere".

[hota_mazi]

Not sure what you mean by that.

Are you talking about the host OS and the fact that Turbo Pascal was Windows only, as opposed to Pascal UCSD which was a VM?

[WalterBright]

I meant that the UCSD system ran on many diverse platforms, and TP did not.