This is in response to a recent inquiry by Yang Da regarding a
Pascal compiler to compile the LINKAGE programs under OS/2. I am
using Prospero Pascal (Prospero Software, 190 Castelnau, London
SW13 9DH, England, Tel. +44-81-741-8531, Fax +44-81-748-9344).
This is a nice relatively inexpensive compiler with many more
compiler switches than e.g. in Turbo Pascal. It does not require
breaking large programs into smaller units. The LINKAGE programs
run slightly faster when compiled with Prosper Pascal than with
Turbo Pascal. There can be up to 4MB of dynamically allocated
memory under Prospero Pascal. As far as I know, Turbo Pascal is
not available under OS/2.
Prospero Pascal does have some limitations, however, the major
one being that arrays in procedures, and constructs (such as a
record) to be allocated dynamically (with NEW), cannot exceed 64K
bytes, although arrays in the main program body can be of any
size (with the appropriate compiler switch). Unfortunately, the
Prospero company does not seem to be very responsive to inquiries
from prospective customers. If anyone has experience with
another Pascal compiler or OS/2 I would like to hear about it.
We are now using OS/2 version 2, which is a great improvement
over previous versions.
Jurg Ott, Columbia University New York
