Subject: CLPB Mini FAQ

Archive-name: pascal/borland-minifaq
Posting-Frequency: Every Week
Last-modified: 1999/01/15
Version: 1.13

***********************************************************************

This document is posted weekly as an aid to new readers of these Newsgroups.
It provides background knowledge of the group, answers to the most frequently
asked questions, a listing of Pascal resources and netiquette in posting to 
the groups. Please do take the time to read through this information.

***********************************************************************

This is the comp.lang.pascal.borland Mini-FAQ, created by Tom Wheeley
and maintained until Feb 98 by Chris Mathews. Currently maintained by 
Pedt Scragg <mailto:newsmaster@pedt.demon.co.uk>.

Crossposted to borland.public.turbopascal from 1998/12/27
You can avoid seeing this Mini-FAQ again by killfiling on X-KILLFILE: CLPB
Please note that follow-up to this article is set to "poster"

***********************************************************************

Contents:

        1  What is comp.lang.pascal.borland?
          1.1  History of the Group
          1.2  Posting Guidelines

        2  Where can I find {more?} Information - Pascal FAQ's?
          2.1  FTP sites
          2.2  Notable sources of information
          2.3  Uploading your masterpieces to an FTP site

        3  Frequently Asked Questions (Not for the Pascal language).
          3.1  Pointers to info for assorted questions  

        APPENDIX A - FTP site mirrors
        APPENDIX B - Credits

***********************************************************************
 1.  What is comp.lang.pascal.borland?
*************************************************************************

This is the group for discussion on Borland Pascal, Turbo Pascal and
Pascal for Windows systems.  All users are welcome, and this group is
not moderated.  In order to keep Usenet confusion down, we request that
you post only questions or discussions concerning Pascal on the Borland
Pascal compilers.

Please note that Delphi does not belong in this group. There are many 
groups for Delphi discussion. Prof. Timo Salmi posts a FAQ regarding 
the newsgroup reorganization of comp.lang.pascal.* weekly. Please read this 
before posting your question in *any* of the pascal or delphi groups. It is 
also available from Garbo (see 'FTP sites')

Also there is the Turbovision group described as "Borland's text application
libraries."  It is C-biased, but Pascal does get a look-in:

comp.os.msdos.programmer.turbovision


Please do not post to the obsolete groups:
   alt.comp.lang.borland-delphi
   comp.lang.pascal
   comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components


*************************************************************************
 1.1 History of the Group
*************************************************************************

comp.lang.pascal.borland was created by popular vote on June 12, 1995.
Information on the group is available from:
        ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/pasgroup.zip


*************************************************************************
 1.2 Posting Guidelines
*************************************************************************

  - "A problem well stated is a problem half solved"  Charles F. Kettering

  -  Put as much information as you can in the subject line.
     *Subjects like "help me" or "question about Pascal" are silly.*
     Also note that some newsreaders truncate the subject line early.

  -  Usually, it will be sufficient to post to a single one of the Pascal
     groups.  But if you ever need to post to more than one group, be sure
     to use a single cross-posted article rather than multiple postings;
     the Newsgroups entry lists the groups, separated by commas.

  -  Please do not request the answer to your question solely via e-mail!
     Someone else will be interested, and it is only polite to the readers

  -  We will not do your homework for you!
     We will, however, give advice on specific topics and code.

  -  Be aware of limits. Many newsreaders have difficulty with subject
     lines over 40 characters (which get chopped up). Try to keep
     your posting text lines to 70 characters or LESS. If you use more,
     your posts will look messy when quoted.

  -  *Binaries must NOT be posted to this group.*  Nor MIME Attachments.
     (Especially nasty are those mailers which convert '=' to '=3D', a very
     bad thing to do to any Pascal source code...)

     If you want to distribute binaries or large source files then you could
     upload it to your own web site or to one of the FTP sites. See the section
     'Uploading your masterpieces to an FTP site'

     If you are wondering *why* binaries are banned, read this:
         ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsfaqn.zip

      13. *****
       Q: May I just go ahead and post binaries to discussion newsgroups?


     Expressly forbidden is posting of any commercial material, for
     example Turbo Pascal 7, or even just GRAPH.TPU.  *This is illegal*
     Do not even ask for these.  Contact Borland if you have a problem.

*************************************************************************
 2.  Where can I find more information?
*************************************************************************

* Pascal FAQs:
   - The infamous, ubiquitous, mandatory and downright useful
     Timo Salmi's 'Common Turbo Pascal Questions and Timo's answers'
     is available at ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsfaqp.zip
     Note that this runs to over 150 questions and answers and a list
     of Question Titles is posted monthly to comp.lang.pascal.borland     

   - Jon Shemitz' original comp.lang.pascal FAQ
     http://www.midnightbeach.com/jon/pubs/clp-faq.htm

   - Pascal Turbo Vision FAQ
     http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/pasfhome.html (see WWW section)

* Learning Pascal

   - If you are beginning Pascal, or want to learn some new techniques,
     you could do far worse than take a look at Glenn Grotzinger's TP
     Tutorial, in section 2.2

*************************************************************************
 2.1   FTP sites: See Appendix A for *some* mirrors
*************************************************************************

'Garbo'   The primary Turbo Pascal source/unit site.
          ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/   {turbopa* directories}
          http://garbo.uwasa.fi

'Oulu'    Lots of files related to game (and demo?) programming.
          ftp://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/msdos/programming/
          http://x2ftp.oulu.fi

'Simtel'  Enormous MS-DOS archive
          ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet
          http://www.simtel.net/simtel.net/

'Borland' Borland's Web site
          ftp://ftp.borland.com/
          http://www.inprise.com/index.html

TV site   Turbovision source/applications ?
          ftp://jam.cog.brown.edu/pub/turbo-vision

These may be referred to by the name in the left hand column, both in
this FAQ, and on the newsgroup.  For Simtel and Garbo at least, the 
contents of the primary site are mirrored in a number of locations 
throughout the world. Please use a mirror site close to you if possible
both to save load on the primary site and to keep the distance between
you and the download site as short as possible. Info on Garbo and Simtel 
mirrors is in Appendix A.

*************************************************************************
 2.2   WWW sites
*************************************************************************

If you have a Web site concentrating on Pascal (esp. Borland), then why
not get it added to the list in the FAQ?  Just send the URL and a short
description to me, <URL:mailto:newsmaster@pedt.demon.co.uk>.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Turbo Pascal Programmers Page

    http://www.programmers.org/languages/pascal/resources/

This page is supposed to give a quick overview of what is available
on the net for programmers in Turbo/Borland Pascal.

Official successor to Jeroen Prins Pages.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Pascal Central
 
   http://pascal-central.com/

The intent of Pascal Central is to provide the Pascal community one place
to obtain Pascal technical information, Pascal source code, and
Pascal-related internet links. Mainly Pascal for the MAC.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Franz Glaser's TP Links

   http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2926/tp.html

Franz Glaser has a very large number of resources available to Pascal 
programmers available from the links page listed. Includes a full set 
of resources for the RunError 200 problem, which is a VFAQ in clpb.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* SWAG.
  See http://www.gdsoft.com/swag/swag.html
  Available from Garbo and Simtel directory turbopas/
  get swaga-c.zip...swags-z.zip + swag.zip.

  A free archive of Turbo Pascal code, produced by the 'Source Ware 
  Archival Group'.  Note that the download is ~5Mb

  Many people would consider SWAG essential before posting here!

  The last SWAG Archive update SWAG9711.ZIP contains a new file: 
  LASTSWAG.TXT. They've decided to cease the current distribution and move 
  to a web-based library concentrating on Delphi.  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Coders Knowledge Base

   http://netalive.org/ckb/

Aims to be the successor to SWAG but information quality is quite variable 
at the present time.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Ralf Brown's Interrupt List

 361404 Jan 03 15:00 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter60a.zip
 inter60a.zip x86/MS-DOS Interrupt List, 1/4, Ralf Brown, impressive

 361144 Jan 03 15:06 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter60b.zip
 inter60b.zip x86/MS-DOS Interrupt List, 2/4, Ralf Brown, impressive

 433487 Jan 03 15:13 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter60c.zip
 inter60c.zip x86/MS-DOS Interrupt List, 3/4, Ralf Brown, impressive

 729487 Jan 03 15:13 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter60d.zip
 inter60d.zip x86/MS-DOS Interrupt List, 4/4, Ralf Brown, impressive

 272159 Jan 03 14:06 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter60e.zip
 inter60e.zip Utility programs/source code for interrupt list, R.Brown

 269872 Jan 03 14:06 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter60f.zip
 inter60f.zip WinHelp conversion programs for interrupt list, R.Brown

 248552 Jan 03 14:06 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/inter60g.zip
 inter60g.zip Hypertext conversion programs for interrupt list, R.Brown

 284031 Apr 15 1991 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/programming/helppc21.zip
 helppc21.zip Advanced Programmer's Quick Reference Utility (good)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* The PCGPE 'PC Games Programmers Encyclopaedia'
  ftp://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/msdos/programming/gpe/pcgpe.zip
  http://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/msdos/programming/gpe/00index.html

  Version 1 contains lots of information on interfacing with games
  related hardware - Mouse, joystick, Sound Cards, VGA specs.
  Useful software techniques include BSP trees, 3d algorithms, a
  starfield sim and fire effects.  gfx file formats included too.

  Includes Assembly and VGA tutorials by Asphyxia and VLA.

  Thankfully, the author is a Pascal aficionado, and so most of the code
  is in Pascal or Pascal-style pseudocode.  It also focusses on
  techniques, rather than doling out code or units, aiding understanding.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Glenn Grotzinger's Turbo Pascal Tutor
  ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/tptutr11.zip

  Now virtually complete, this tutor was written and posted to the 
  comp.lang.pascal.borland newsgroup.  It contains tutorials, 
  exercises and answers for all the major areas in Turbo Pascal, and most
  of the niches too.

  Latest copy with any new material is currently available from
      http://www2.crosswinds.net/kansas-city-mo/~ggrotz/pasindex.html

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Bug Lists

Believe it or not, your favourite Borland products are not 100% perfect.

  Borland Pascal 7 
  ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbspec/tp7bugs2.zip

  Turbo Pascal 6
  ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopa6/tp6bugs7.zip

  TurboVision (possibly newer versions of Brad Williams's TV bug list)
  ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbovis/tvbugs31.zip

*************************************************************************
 2.3   Uploading your masterpieces to an FTP site
*************************************************************************

If you upload your splendid TPU, program or source code, then it doesn't
clutter up the newsgroup and will be publicly available for longer.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Garbo
  Make sure you get these files:
    ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPLOAD.INF   (Info on uploading)
    ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPTEXT.INF   (Questionnaire to fill in)
  And remember to send an e-mailed anouncement!

  If you upload a unit, then you *must* also send a small demonstration
  source program which uses your unit.  You do not have to send the
  actual source to your unit if you do not wish to

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Simtel
  Can authors of ShareWare, FreeWare and Public Domain programs upload
  their programs to Simtel?

  Yes. For details send e-mail to listserv@Simtel.Net with this
  command in the body of the message: get upload.info

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
More could well follow.  There are {nearly!} always helpful pointers at
other ftp sites saying what you should do.  If in doubt, there may be a
.message in an incoming directory, or you could politely mail the site.

*************************************************************************
3) Frequently Asked Questions.
*************************************************************************

* Fast CPUs (Celeron, Pentium II, and >200MHz) give problems with Crt.Delay.

  A problem may occur with a PP-200 (or better) CPU in that Runtime Error
  no 200 is generated by the start-up code of the CRT unit. There is a 
  division of a large number by 55 whose result won't fit into a 16 bit 
  register; the CPU generates the 'divide by zero' exception/interrupt for that.

  See Timo Salmi's FAQ #124 for details

  Frank Heckenbach's remedy, for TP/BP 7.00/7.01, is
  available at
          http://fjf.gnu.de/programs.html#NewDelay

  Or Roger Donais's remedy : Those without source, compiling DOS real mode
  programs may find RDELAY.ZIP useful
          http://users.southeast.net/~rdonais/tpascal.html
          ftp://users.southeast.net/~rdonais/tpascal/rdelay.zip
  It contains source for a Turbo 4.0 through 7.0 compatible unit designed
  to prevent the "Divide by 0" error encountered on fast machines.

  There was a related problem in earlier TP version when the initialisation 
  code calibrated the delay to be too short without generating an error. Frank
  Heckenbach's page has a fix and also see Timo Salmi's FAQ, article #67.

  Franz Glaser has collected a large number of patches for this and they can
  be found via http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2926/tp.html

  Further discussions of timing and delays can be found in Prof. Salmi's
  TurboPascal FAQ, in Kris Heidenstrom's Timing FAQ, in the newsgroup
  comp.lang.pascal.borland - *read previous posts first*, and at
          http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/pas-time.htm#Delay

  There has been a tentative suggestion that >450MHz CPU's could give errors
  with *some* of the fixes available. This is however not proved.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* How do I make EXE files with Turbo Pascal?

In Turbo Pascal, in the compile menu, select COMPILE TO MEMORY. Open the 
menu again, and it should say COMPILE TO DISK. Then select COMPILE, and it 
will create the file XXX.EXE, where XXX is the name of your .PAS file.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Will Delphi V2/3/4 do DOS programs as well as Windows?

  Delphi V2/3/4 is for Windows 95 and Windows NT.  It is not a DOS product. 
  It can create 32-bit console mode apps, but it will not create DOS apps.

  If you want DOS apps from a Delphi Product then Delphi V1 can do them with 
  some work on the RTL. See http://www.pedt.demon.co.uk/ for one solution.
      
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Is there a Borland Pascal Mailing list?

  No, there is not.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Is it possible to 'decompile' Pascal EXEs or TPUs?

  No.  Too much information is lost in the compiling process.  For a more
  detailed explanation see Prof. Timo Salmi's FAQ.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* What are the Borland Pascal Products

  In essence, Borland Pascal was the 'professional' product, whilst the
  Turbo Pascals are 'hobbyist' products.

  Current Versions are (excluding fixes):
    Turbo Pascal 7   (Dos)
    Turbo Pascal for Windows 1.5 (Win)

  Discontinued versions
    Borland Pascal 7 (DOS, WIN 3.1, Pmode)

  Borland Pascal can do everything that both Turbo Pascals can do, plus:

  .  Compile for 16 bit DOS Protected mode (less memory constraints)
  .  Full Run Time Library Source code
  .  Lots of assorted debugging and programming tools

  There is an update to TP and BP to v7.01.  This can be obtained by
  contacting Inprise.  These still have VER70 defined. Turbo Pascal is
  still available but TPW and BP have been discontinued. You could try

    http://www.wdn.com/ems/oldtools/borland.htm

  for the possibilities of obtaining a used copy of the various versions
  of the Pascal compilers produced by Borland.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Are there any freeware Pascal compilers?

- FPK Pascal

  FPK-Pascal also known as FPC (Free Pascal Compiler) is a 32-bit
Turbo Pascal compatible compiler system for DOS and Linux. Comes with
full Pascal source, and compiles itself. Full English documentation is
available. 
      http://www.brain.uni-freiburg.de/~klaus/pascal/fpk-pas/

The newest version of FPK-Pascal can always be found at 
       http://home.pages.de/~FPK-Pascal/

- GNU Pascal

GNU Pascal is a portable 32 bit compiler system which is about 80% Borland
compatible in the current version (2.0).  It is part of the GNU family of
compilers, runs on all platforms supported by GNU C, including DOS, OS/2
and Win32.  Full C source and precompiled binaries for DOS, OS/2, Win32,
Linux, and other platforms are available from:
        ftp://kampi.hut.fi/jtv/gnu-pascal

    Newest information can be obtained from
        http://agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de/~gnu-pascal/    or
        http://home.pages.de/~GNU-Pascal/

  There is a GNU Pascal mailing list, gpc@hut.fi.  To subscribe, write to
        gpc-request@hut.fi

    For a comparision between FPK Pascal and GNU Pascal, see the file
       ftp://kampi.hut.fi/jtv/gnu-pascal/FPKvsGNU
  which was written by authors of both compilers in cooperation.

- TMT Pascal

TMT Pascal, now at Version 3.00, is a 32-bit compiler with Turbo Pascal 
syntax and is quite compatible with Turbo Pascal. Also version that will 
compile Win95/98 programs is now available.

   There is a free evaluation version of TMT Pascal available at
       http://www.tmt.com/ 

   The free version is limited to 1.5Mb for code plus data and 
   commercial programs cannot be made with it.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* How should I unsubscribe from the INFO-PASCAL mailing list?

Send the message "unsubscribe INFO-PASCAL" to

    mailto:info-pascal-request@brl.mil

Please do not send such requests (or others) to info-Pascal@brl.mil

*************************************************************************
 3.1   Pointers to info for assorted questions  
*************************************************************************
This new section attempts to provide pointers to help and resources
for some of the other VFAQ's. Any assistance to compile a fuller list
will be gratefully received.

* Cursor blink problem in Win95 after exiting BPW IDE
   ftp://ftp.inprise.com/pub/otherprod/devsupport/misc/tdsvga.zip

* Standalone debugger and profiler do not work under Win95
   File above and use TDWINTH.DLL instead of TDWIN.DLL

* Can I use truetype or other BGI fonts with BP7
   http://www.freetype.org/
   http://www.xs4all.nl/~remcodek/fontpage.html

* Where can I find source code for ZIP files
  http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/African_Chief/

*************************************************************************
 Appendix A - Ftp Mirror sites (Choose the closest to you)
*************************************************************************

* Public, authorized Garbo mirror sites:

Note: this list (generally) has only one listing per country/state

               France:  ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/pc/garbo/
              Germany:  ftp://ftp.germany.eu.net/pub/comp/msdos/mirror.garbo/
      London, England:  ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/mirrors/garbo/
          Pisa, Italy:  ftp://cnuce_arch.cnr.it/pub/msdos/garbo.uwasa.fi/
         Riga, Latvia:  ftp://ftp.lanet.lv/pub/windows/
   InfoMagic, AZ, USA:  ftp://ftp.infomagic.com/pub/mirrors/garbo/msdos/
Walnut Creek, CA, USA:  ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/garbo/
      Urbana, IL, USA:  ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/systems/pc/garbo/
   St. Louis, MO, USA:  ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/msdos/garbo.uwasa.fi/
   Austin, Texas, USA:  ftp://ftp.dataplex.net/pub/garbo/pc/
 Melbourne, Australia:  ftp://archie.au/micros/pc/garbo/
      Hong Kong, Asia:  ftp://ftp.hkstar.com/pub/garbo/
         Taiwan, Asia:  ftp://NCTUCCCA.edu.tw/PC/garbo/
   Seoul, Korea, Asia:  ftp://ftp.nuri.net/pub/garbo/
  Natal, South Africa:  ftp://Owl.und.ac.za/mirrors/garbo/pc/

Important Note: Some of these mirror sites do become out of date, it may well be 
best to go directly to Garbo at ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/ 

* Simtel.Net
  
  Simtel.Net is a worldwide distribution network for Shareware, Freeware,
  and Public Domain programs for MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, and Windows 95/98.

  For a complete Simtel.Net list, send mail to listserv@Simtel.Net 
  with body:
      get mirrors.info

  You can also get a list of mirror sites and directory descriptions from
      news:comp.archives.msdos.announce 
      news:comp.archives.ms-windows.announce

      Look for the subjects
          List of Simtel.Net MS-DOS dirs w/descriptions
          List of Simtel.Net authorized mirror sites

The Simtel mirrors should also be listed at
      http://www.simtel.net/simtel.net/mirrors.html

  *************************************************************************
   Appendix B - Credits
  *************************************************************************
  Scott A. Moore    - Original posting guidelines
  Dr John Stockton  - WWW sites, many corrections/tips
  Prof. Timo Salmi  - Garbo mirrors, corrections
  Anthon Pang       - Beta testing WWW sites
  Keith Petersen    - Simtel.Net information
  Tom Wheeley       - Creator of this FAQ
  Chris Mathews     - Previous maintainer of this FAQ
  Not forgetting those not mentioned whose contributions have also helped.
  *************************************************************************
  Thank you for reading the Mini-FAQ     

  Copies available from http://www.pascal.force9.co.uk/faq/clpb-faq.txt
                        http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/clpb-faq.txt
                        ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/faqclpb.zip

  Old versions from     http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/oldpfaqs/

  Comments, additions, alterations and corrections to
  <mailto:newsmaster@pedt.demon.co.uk>
