Re: why the pascal family of languages (Pascal, Ada, Modula-2,2,Oberon, Delphi, Algol,...) failed compared to the C family?

[John Perry <john.perry@usm.edu>]

On Tuesday, June 1, 2021 at 6:04:49 PM UTC-5, Bill Findlay wrote:
> On 1 Jun 2021, Paul Rubin wrote
> (in article <877djdf...@nightsong.com>):
> > Bill Findlay<findl...@blueyonder.co.uk> writes: 
> > > > > The 20KSLOC compiler ran on a 1.5MIPS machine. 
> > > > Yes, but 1) 20KSLOC per what unit of time, 
> > 
> > Ok, but that's maybe 5x slower than Turbo Pascal, which compiled 1000s 
> > of LOC per second on machines of that class.
> Well that is not what emerged in the conversation I reported. 
> The details are vague now, the gist was that the 1977 compiler 
> on comparable machines was several times faster that Turbo. 

May I ask what is meant by "comparable machines"?

Here's why I ask: it can't have been a machine based on the Intel 8088, because that wasn't available until 1979. An elderly embedded engineer I know says that the CPU used in the PC series, at least the early PC's (8088 & 286) was a terrible CPU. He likes to joke how his <1MHz 6809-based "Trash 80 Color Computer" at $500 could run circles around the >4MHz 8088-based IBM at $1500.

So I'm curious if you know the basis of the claim that it was comparable hardware: clock speed, RAM, etc.

> I see no point in pursuing this further. 

I can understand, and I apologize if I shouldn't have asked, but I am genuinely curious about what was meant. I hope you don't mind.