> On May 9, 2024, at 5:45 AM, Will Cooke via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>> On 05/09/2024 7:24 AM CDT Bill Degnan via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Mike
>> I was thinking operating systems and the early launch version IBM PC, but
>> yes once the hardware caught up Turbo Pascal was a popular program now that
>> I think about it. So I guess the PC versions just needed more horsepower
>> and some useful libraries. But Pascal never matched C
>> Bill
>>
>
> My perception is that UCSD P system was quite popular in the late 70s on
> Apple and other systems. Then when the university turned it over to
> commercial marketing (SofTech?), the silly games played turned a lot of
> people off. Like trying to revoke previously granted licenses and charging
> "too much."
>
> I suspect that left a bad taste in a lot of mouths that might otherwise have
> been interested. But I was a distant observer at the time; I couldn't
> afford more than my ZX-81 and VIC-20.
>
> Will
>
SofTech MicroSystems to be specific. They spun it up specifically for UCSD
Pascal and hired a lot of the projects students as their first engineers and
managers. It was an interesting place to work, mostly because we (the
students/new employees) still had the UCSD development mindset and not the
corporate philosophy that SofTech wanted.
Yes, They did the silly games and screwed up a good thing. UCSD Pascal IV.II
(4.2) was pretty good IIRC however it was too little/too late to the party. By
then everything was MS/DOS and C was coming on strong even in the micro world.
The fact that you had to run the P-System OS and the 64KB limit on addressing
didn’t help adoption.
David
