PCjs Machines

IBM Pascal Compiler 1.00

When the IBM Pascal Compiler 1.00 was originally released in August 1981, the standard IBM PC contained at most two diskette drives (no hard drive), so compiling Pascal programs required using a “scratch disk” in drive B: and then inserting each of the three 160Kb Pascal Compiler disks into drive A: to complete the compilation and linking process. Moreover, the user was required to copy LINK.EXE from their PC DOS 1.00 diskette (the only version of PC DOS available at the time) to the third disk.

To make life a bit simpler (but only a bit), we’ve combined the contents of all three diskettes onto a 360Kb “Combined” diskette, along with LINK.EXE from PC DOS 1.00. Here’s the DiskDump command used to produce the diskette image:

node tools/old/diskdump/bin/diskdump.js --path="archive/PAS1/PAS1.EXE;PASKEY;ENTX6S.ASM;FILKQQ.INC;FILUQQ.INC;archive/PAS2/PAS2.EXE;
archive/PAS3/PASCAL;PASCAL.LIB;../../../../dos/ibm/1.00/archive/PCDOS100/LINK.EXE" --format=json --label=PASCAL100
--output=PASCAL100-DISKS.json --manifest 

It’s important to use the original PC DOS linker, because not all linkers will process IBM Pascal 1.00 object files properly. Given this dependency, it’s odd that IBM didn’t simply distribute the PC DOS 1.00 linker on the third IBM Pascal disk; there was certainly room for it, so it wouldn’t have cost anything, and it would have reduced the risk of using a newer and potentially incompatible linker.

NOTE: We do not have copies of the three original distribution disks. However, based on information in IBM’s Pascal Compiler documentation, we were able to recreate the contents of the disks. The file dates were arbitrarily selected from the August 1981 time frame.

Directory of IBM Pascal 1.00 (Disk 1)

 Volume in drive A is DISK1
 Directory of A:\

ENTX6S   ASM      8320   8-31-81  12:00p
FILKQQ   INC      5347   8-31-81  12:00p
FILUQQ   INC      1513   8-31-81  12:00p
PAS1     EXE     81408   8-31-81  12:00p
PASKEY            2816   8-31-81  12:00p
        5 file(s)      99404 bytes
                       59904 bytes free

Directory of IBM Pascal 1.00 (Disk 2)

 Volume in drive A is DISK2
 Directory of A:\

PAS2     EXE     99200   8-31-81  12:00p
        1 file(s)      99200 bytes
                       60928 bytes free

Directory of IBM Pascal 1.00 (Disk 3)

 Volume in drive A is DISK3
 Directory of A:\

PASCAL              50   8-31-81  12:00p
PASCAL   LIB     83456   8-31-81  12:00p
        2 file(s)      83506 bytes
                       76288 bytes free

Directory of IBM Pascal 1.00 (Combined)

 Volume in drive A is PASCAL100
 Directory of A:\

PAS1     EXE     81408   8-31-81  12:00p
PASKEY            2816   8-31-81  12:00p
ENTX6S   ASM      8320   8-31-81  12:00p
FILKQQ   INC      5347   8-31-81  12:00p
FILUQQ   INC      1513   8-31-81  12:00p
PAS2     EXE     99200   8-31-81  12:00p
PASCAL              50   8-31-81  12:00p
PASCAL   LIB     83456   8-31-81  12:00p
LINK     EXE     43264   8-04-81
        9 file(s)     325374 bytes
                       31744 bytes free

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