Happy 15th Birthday Delphi!

[Pyrogine]

http://quantum-engine.com/images/articles/delphi1.jpg http://quantum-engine.com/images/articles/TurboPascal3.jpg

On February 14, 1995 the first version of Delphi was released. For the first time I could be productive writing windows applications in a nice, intuitive, visual way. Not only that, but could use the same development tool to make add-on components. I've used every version going way back to Turbo Pascal 3.0. Now days we're using Delphi 2010 to build all of our current products.

Thinking about it, I first purchased Turbo Pascal 3.0 back in 1986... phew... 20+ years of Pascal for me. Man, where does the time go?

[Brainer]

Ah, such a nostalgic thread. :)

I do remember the time when I first installed TP 7.0 and made a program which displayed a message on the screen. Slowly after, I moved to Delphi 1. Then came Delphi 3, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 2005, and now Delphi 2010.

I can really see the IDE progressing. I don't regret those nearly 10 years I spent on programming in Delphi. I learned everything about programming in Delphi and I could not see it any other way.

Long life Delphi!

[chronozphere]

Ah, such a nostalgic thread. :)

I do remember the time when I first installed TP 7.0 and made a program which displayed a message on the screen. Slowly after, I moved to Delphi 1. Then came Delphi 3, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 2005, and now Delphi 2010.

I can really see the IDE progressing. I don't regret those nearly 10 years I spent on programming in Delphi. I learned everything about programming in Delphi and I could not see it any other way.

Long life Delphi!


Wow.. did you really start with Turbo Pascal. :o You're younger than me, and I started with Delphi 5. lol ;)

Yeh.. Delphi rocks :)

[paul_nicholls]

Neat! I also started with Turbo Pascal - version 5 I think.

I then moved to Delphi 1 (academic version!), 3, 5, 6.

I also use Delphi 2007 and D010 at work.

cheers,
Paul

[Pyrogine]

If I remember correctly it (TP3) was something like 49.95 back then. It came shrink wrapped with the floppy inside the manual. It had the no-nonsense license agreement which stated a book can only be read by one person at a time so then only one copy of the software was allowed to run on one computer at a time. Something like that. Ahh, those where the days, simple and to the point.

The versions I've had:

TP3-TP7
Borland Pascal, which included 16-bit protected mode support.
Turbo Pascal for Windows (Doh! any one remember this?)
Delphi 1-2010

With TP4, I flexed my wings and started doing some advanced stuff. Again, wings flexed more with TP5.5 which introduced OOP into the language. After TP6, I think I purchased Turbo C++ and learned C++, which was good for me that I started out with OOP which help a great deal.

Delphi 2 (first 32bit version) allowed me to grow more chest hairs because now I can develop with out all the 16bit hassles and memory constraints. D3 added packages and more database support. D4, ah hum... lets just skip that version, hehe. It was D7 that again, I flexed wings. The engine code what would eventually become Quantum Engine started when I got D7. QE got it's start using TP7 as high speed blitting routines for DOS using mode 13h (remember that mode?). After Delphi and DirectX 7 came out I eventually converted it to Windows and it's been in continual development ever since. So around 15 years or so. In between that time there was a C++ version and an OGL version as well. Son, it's been a cool ride, learning and growing and eventually seeing your vision come to fruitation.

[Brainer]

Wow.. did you really start with Turbo Pascal. :o You're younger than me, and I started with Delphi 5. lol ;)

Yep. :) The funny thing was I had problems with installing it. :) I had an old unzipping program installed called ZipMagic. It came with a pirated version of Office 2000. lol Due to this program I couldn't install TP. Accidentally, a friend of mine removed it and suddenly it installed. haha

[paul_nicholls]

The versions I've had:

TP3-TP7
Borland Pascal, which included 16-bit protected mode support.
Turbo Pascal for Windows (Doh! any one remember this?)

Turbo Pascal for Windows - I had forgotten about that one!

I had that too, and I made a cryptic crossword puzzle program using it (was comissioned for the project), and :o I actually sold one copy for $30 AUD I think way back then LOL

cheers,
Paul

[Ñuño Martínez]

I used Delphi 6 only but I think it was a good piece of code. *Cof* I almost started with QuickBASIC (best BASIC ever), the I was Turbo C user for a long long time, another great IDE+Compiler. When I got a job as programmer I used Delphi 6 and I liked a lot. Nowadays I use FPC and GCC.

Long live to Delphi too. It was great. I hope in the future it evolves to be again the greatest. Actually :)

[NecroDOME]

14 feb, Valentine's Day :D

[Stoney]

It all started with Turbo Pascal 7.0 around 7th grade. Before that I was doing some BASIC and simple HTML stuff.
I have used Delphi 1 - 7 (except for Delphi 4) and Turbo Delphi. It's sad there is so little interest in Delphi and Pascal-oriented programming languages these days.

With a few exceptions I haven't actually used Delphi that much lately, I completely over completely to FreePascal (and Lazarus).
Still, I would very much like to see Delphi being used more frequently by developers.

[paul_nicholls]

We use Delphi 2007 and D010 here at work.

Our main software, Altium Designer (www.altium.com), is written using Delphi...yay!

cheers,
Paul

[paul_nicholls]

Oh, and I started programming around the age of 12 on my trusty old Commodore-64 using Basic, and then some assembly language too :D

May my C-64 rest in piece ;D

Those WERE the days ;)

cheers,
Paul

[Pyrogine]

Hmm... let me see... I think I started around 12-13 as well. My first computer was a TRS-80 Model 1 followed by the Color Computer (I ended up getting the 1, 2 and 3 models). It was on the CoCo as it was called back then, that I learned how to program. Basic and later some 6809 ASM were my first languages. This was the early 80s. Years later I finally got a PC and crossed path with Turbo Pascal 3.0. No turning back at that point. Yep, indeed those were the days for sure.

[chronozphere]

Wow.. you guys started early. I wrote my first programs in Delphi 5 when I was 15. Before that i did some HTML + Javascript. :)

[Brainer]

Wow.. you guys started early. I wrote my first programs in Delphi 5 when I was 15.

It doesn't really matter when you started as long as you put heart in it. :)

The truth is that some people are actually made for something, and sometimes, even if you try twice as they do to learn more or achieve more, you won't be able to beat them, no matter how long and hard you try.

As long as you feel fine in what you do, there's absolutely no stopping you and it is not important how long you do it. Some people program for 10 years and do stupid mistakes due to routine.

No need to worry, Nathan. :) Keep up the great work and, what's the most important, in Pascal!

[NecroDOME]

I think I started around 16/17 or so... don't really remember...

[chronozphere]

Wow.. you guys started early. I wrote my first programs in Delphi 5 when I was 15.

It doesn't really matter when you started as long as you put heart in it. :)

The truth is that some people are actually made for something, and sometimes, even if you try twice as they do to learn more or achieve more, you won't be able to beat them, no matter how long and hard you try.

As long as you feel fine in what you do, there's absolutely no stopping you and it is not important how long you do it. Some people program for 10 years and do stupid mistakes due to routine.

No need to worry, Nathan. :) Keep up the great work and, what's the most important, in Pascal!


Thanx.. No worries here eh ;)

[WILL]

Not that it may be worth boosting this thread for, but I actually started programming when I was 13, same time I got my first PC, a 386 DX 25MHz with a whopping 2 MB of RAM and a 1 MB SVGA video card.

[Pyrogine]

Haha.... I rem my first computer... TRS-Model I by Radio Shack. This was in 1979. Doh! Later that Christmas I got the Color Computer I. I learned how to really program on this machine. Interesting enough the CoCo II and III had a multitasking OS from a 3rd party called OS-9 Level I, which ran on the Motorola 6809E CPUs with up to 64K, yep Kilobytes of memory. 64K, what's that? Hehe. Oh yea.... those where the days. Somewhere between the CoCo II and III I purchased a Pascal compiler (forget the name), which was my very first foray with the Pascal language. I do remember on my 32k CoCo there was not enough memory to edit and compile so you had to load the editor, write code and then load the compiler to generate the executable. Son! This was the mid 80s and by 86 I had gotten a PC and found Turbo Pascal.

If I could go back for a day and revisit myself, the excitement and fun of those years.... only my memories can take me back for moments such as this. However, now days having gotten use to all the great tools that's available I would find it very difficult to code like we did back then. Gigabytes of memory, gigahertz processors, virtual memory... whoa... if would could have peaked into the future about 10-15 years to see what was to come. It was have been as foreign to me as it is now looking back on how primitive the dev tools use to be.

[alexione]

The first programming book I had in my hands was about BASIC (when I was 10). Later, while I was going into the music school, after I finish classes I would go to library and write Pascal programs between notes in my notebooks for music school :) Then, three years later I bought book about Turbo Pascal and my father got XT 8086 when I was 15. During that time (more than two years), I used to write and write and write programs in Pascal without actually being able to type or compile them. Ahhh.... what a joy was it to test them when I got TP installed! :D