Turbo Rascal : Pascal Compiler & IDE for tons of classic systems
One language for: C64, VIC-20, NES, Gameboy, ZX Spectrum, Atari 2600, 8086AT, Amiga 500, Atari 800, BBC Micro, SNES, Apple II & Atari ST + MORE
I’ve recently become acquainted with Turbo Rascal — a Pascal compiler for an absolutely insane number of platforms.
Check this out:
Turbo Rascal has a “focus on the MOS 6502, the Motorola 68000, the (GB)Z80 and the X86. TRSE currently supports application development for the C64, C128, VIC-20, PLUS4, NES, Gameboy, PET, ZX Spectrum, TIKI 100, Amstrad CPC 464, Atari 2600, 8086AT, Amiga 500, Atari 800, BBC Micro, Super Nintendo (SNES), Mega65, VZ200, MSX, Apple II and the Atari ST 520”
Support for every platform is not at the same level of completeness, as the platform support page details, but what is working is astoundingly impressive.
The IDE is available for Linux, Windows, and macOS — and has full source code available under the GPL v3.
There are even detailed instructions on how to set up the IDE and appropriate emulators for the various platforms. That, combined with the included example projects, the available tutorials, and the syntax sheet should be able to get anyone up to speed pretty darn fast.
Obviously, having some experience with Pascal is going to help… but, in all honesty, so long as you have some experience with any language (C, BASIC, Python, etc.), picking up this Pascal variant should be a relatively painless process.
While you’re at it, check out the showcase gallery. There are tons of examples there — including some pretty cool demos and games (mostly for C64 as that seems to be where the focus of Turbo Rascal has been).
Fun side note: The full, original name of “Turbo Rascal” (which is a play on the famous “Turbo Pascal” from Borland) was “Turbo Rascal Syntax error, “;” expected but “BEGIN””
Seriously. Which is just adorably in its own right.
Tell people about Turbo Rascal. Click that Share button. Do it. You know you want to.
While we’re clicking buttons… what’s this mysterious and beautiful button down here… seems like it might be fun to click it. Do we dare?