Turbo Cis a discontinuedintegrated development environment(IDE) andcompilerfor theC programming languagefromBorland.First introduced in 1987, it was noted for its integrated development environment, small size, fast compile speed, comprehensive manuals and low price.
| Developer(s) | Borland |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 1987 |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows,MS-DOS |
| Successor | Turbo C++ Borland C++ |
| Type | IDE |
| License | Proprietary software |
In May 1990, Borland replaced Turbo C withTurbo C++.In 2006, Borland reintroduced theTurbomoniker.
Early history
editIn the early 1980s, Borland enjoyed considerable success with theirTurbo Pascalproduct and it became a popular choice when developing applications for the PC. Borland followed up that success by releasingTurbo Prolog(in 1986), and in 1987,Turbo Basicand Turbo C. Turbo C has similar properties to Turbo Pascal: anintegrated development environment,a fast compiler (though not near the speed of Turbo Pascal),[1]a good editor, and a competitive price.
Turbo C competed with other professional programming tools, such asMicrosoft C,Watcom C,[2]andLattice C,while Turbo Pascal was successful with hobbyists and schools as well as professional programmers.
Version history
editVersion 1.0(May 13, 1987) offered the first integrated development environment for C onIBM PCs.Like many Borland products of the time, the software was bought from another company (in this caseWizard C compilerby Bob Jervis[3]), and branded with the "Turbo" name. It ran in384 kBof memory. It allowedinline assemblywith full access to C symbolic names and structures, supported all memory models, and offered optimizations for speed, size,constant folding,and jump elimination.[4]
Version 1.5(January 1988) was an incremental improvement over version 1.0. It included more sample programs, improved manuals and bug fixes. It was shipped on five 360 KBdiskettesof uncompressed files, and came with sample C programs, including a stripped down spreadsheet calledmcalc.This version introduced the <conio.h> header file (which provided fast, PC-specific console I/O routines).
Version 2.0(late 1988) featured the first "blue screen" version, which would be typical of all future Borland releases forMS-DOS.It was also available bundled withTurbo AssemblerandTurbo Debugger.Turbo C 2.0 was also released (inGermanyonly) for theAtari ST;the program was not maintained by Borland, but sold and renamed PureC. This version introduced the <graphics.h> header file, which provided theBorland Graphics Interfacealready included inTurbo Pascal.
With the release ofTurbo C++1.0 (in 1990), the two products were folded into one and the name "Turbo C" was discontinued. The C++ compiler was developed under contract by a company in San Diego, and was one of the first "true" compilers for C++ (until then, it was common to use pre-compilers that generated C code, ref.Cfront).
Freeware release
editIn 2006,[citation needed]Borland's successor,Embarcadero Technologies,re-released Turbo C and the MS-DOS versions of the Turbo C++ compilers asfreeware.[5][6][7]
Reception
editBYTEin January 1989 listed Turbo C and Turbo Pascal as among the "Distinction" winners of the BYTE Awards. Citing their user interface and continued emphasis on speed, the magazine stated that "for rapid prototyping there's not much better".[8]In a February 1989 overview of optimizing C compilers,BYTEsaid that Turbo C Professional 2.0 "is no exception" to the company's "well-deserved reputation for pricing good software". The magazine reported that Turbo C "compiles faster—muchfaster—than any other compiler we reviewed ", and praised the addition of Turbo Debugger (" the best source debugger ").BYTEconcluded that Turbo C did not produce the fastest or smallest executable, "but it's definitely the one that is most fun to use".[2]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^Hague, James."A Personal History of Compilation Speed, Part 2".Programming in the 21st Century.Retrieved2016-06-05.
- ^abApiki, Steven; Udell, Jon (February 1989)."Smoothing Out C".BYTE.pp. 170–186.Retrieved2024-10-08.
- ^Borland Backgrounder,2/8/99
- ^"Computing Dictionary".Foldoc.org.Retrieved2022-09-26.
- ^Tim DelChiaro (2011-03-28)."Free Borland C++ 5.5 Compiler".Edn.embarcadero.com.Archived fromthe originalon 2015-01-19.Retrieved2019-09-11.
- ^David Intersimone (2000-02-15) [1989-05-11]."Antique Software: Turbo C version 2.01".Edn.embarcadero.com.Archived fromthe originalon 2012-07-22.Retrieved2019-09-11.
- ^David Intersimone (2000-04-14) [1991-02-28]."Antique Software: Turbo C++ version 1.01".Edn.embarcadero.com.Retrieved2019-09-11.
- ^"The BYTE Awards".BYTE.January 1989. p. 327.