Free Pascal Goes Win64!

**WILL** · 01-05-2006, 11:29 PM

The Free Pascal Compiler Team have finally released the first official Windows 64-bit port of the Free Pascal compiler. The GNU C Compiler doesn't even support this yet!

I would imagine that full Win64 support will be available in the next [size=9px](2.1.1?)[/size] version as well as a lot of other 64-bit targets. And why not? Now that it has it's own 32-bit and 64-bit internal linkers. And lets noteven talk about support for the new Intel Macs. [size=9px](aka Darwin/i386)[/size]

A snapshot is available on their site for download via FTP right now, so go and get it!

[size=9px]Get the first official Win64 port snapshot at www.FreePascal.org![/size]

**Eric** · 02-05-2006, 06:00 AM

Only noticed it yesterday after reading a comment from Florian than it hadn't been downloaded much... but.. but... I didn't even knew it was available!

**WILL** · 02-05-2006, 07:10 AM

Well considering that Windows Vista has yet to be released until late 2006 - early 2007, that might have something to do with it. Windows XP 64-bit is out, but are people really that attracted to it considering that Vista is coming this fall? I'm sure Microsoft will decide to charge an arm and a leg for XP 64-bit alone.

I think it'll catch on eventually as 64-bit becomes more common with Windows. Until then, there is always 64-bit for Linux.

**Eric** · 02-05-2006, 07:34 AM

I'm sure Microsoft will decide to charge an arm and a leg for XP 64-bit alone.

WinXP 64 Pro is already available, its price is the same as WinXP 32 Pro, and I'm actually typing this reply from XP64 - which is now my primary OS @work
There was an exchange your "XP32Pro for XP64Pro for free" operation sometime ago, dunno if it's still active.

are people really that attracted to it considering that Vista is coming this fall

I'm not really sure what Vista is going to bring to the table, except for visuals and a Media Player I won't use.
XP64 is already based on the Win2k3 codebase (it's not a 64bit version of the XP32 codebase), that alone means it's more responsive in a variety of scenarios.