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Microsoft had a Pascal compiler called Quick Pascal. I've seen some conflicting reports about when it was available. Does anyone know for sure? Did it introduce any new language features over the alternatives, or was it just Microsoft's version?

Jim McKeeth
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QuickPascal was Microsoft's knee-jerk reaction to the colossal success (at the time) of Borland's TurboPascal. TP was MUCH cheaper than Microsoft Pascal and so Microsoft released a cut-down dev tool & compiler and called it QuickPascal (QP). QP was $25 - $50 vs. MSP's $400+ price tag.

So worried were Microsoft at the time, that MS made QuickPascal compatible with TurboPascal binaries & libraries! In general, both Microsoft Pascal and QuickPascal tried to stick as close to the official Pascal spec as possible, but erred towards mimicing any TurboPascal idiosyncrasies rather than build MS—specific features in.

Richard Turner
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    So Quick Pascal was a scaled down version of Microsoft Pascal. I didn't know that. Time for some more digging. Thanks! – Jim McKeeth Jul 29 '11 at 19:31