Subject: CLPB Mini FAQ
Archive-name: pascal/borland-minifaq
Posting-Frequency: Every week
Last-modified: 2006-02-04
Version: 1.68
This document is (in general) posted every week as an aid to new
readers of these Newsgroups. It provides background knowledge of the
group, answers to the most frequently asked questions, a listing of
Pascal resources and netiquette in posting to the groups. Please do
take the time to read through this information.
Changes to the FAQ, giving a new version number will have a # in the
first column for the life of the version.
**********************************************************************
This is the comp.lang.pascal.borland Mini-FAQ, created by Tom Wheeley.
It was maintained by Chris Mathews until Feb 1998 and by Pedt Scragg
until February 2003. It's currently maintained by Robert AH Prins
<mailto:clpbfaq at prino dot net>.
You can avoid seeing this Mini-FAQ again by killfiling on
'[FAQ] mini-FAQ V1.' _and_
'- essential reading for those new to the newsgroup'
**********************************************************************
Contents:
1 What is comp.lang.pascal.borland?
1.1 History of the Group
1.2 Posting Guidelines
2 Where can I find {more?} Information - Pascal FAQ's?
2.1 FTP sites
2.2 Notable sources of information
2.3 Uploading your masterpieces to an FTP site
3 Very Frequently Asked Questions.
3.1 Pointers to info for assorted questions
3.2 Request for answers
4 Compiler and unit downloads
4.1 Borland compilers for download
4.2 Replacement units for download
4.2.1 Replacement SYSTEM units available for download
4.2.2 Replacement CRT units available for download
4.2.3 Replacement OVERLAY unit for download
4.2.4 Emulator sources for download
APPENDIX A - FTP site mirrors
APPENDIX B - Credits
**********************************************************************
1. What is comp.lang.pascal.borland?
**********************************************************************
This is the Usenet newsgroup for discussion on Borland Pascal, Turbo
Pascal and Turbo Pascal for Windows systems. All users are welcome
and this group is not moderated. In order to keep Usenet confusion
down, we request that you post only questions or discussions
concerning Pascal on the Borland Pascal compilers.
You might also be interested in "what are the differences between
Borland/Delphi/Kylix languages and ISO 7185 standard Pascal", at:
http://www.moorecad.com/standardpascal/ansiiso.faq
Please note that Delphi does not belong in this group. There are
many groups for Delphi discussion. Until the beginning of March
2005, Prof. Timo Salmi used to post a weekly FAQ regarding the
newsgroup reorganization of comp.lang.pascal.*. The contents of this
FAQ can be found as the answer to Q 76 in
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsfaqp.zip
Also there is the Turbovision group described as "Borland's text
application libraries." It is C-biased, but Pascal does get a
look-in:
comp.os.msdos.programmer.turbovision
Please do not post to the obsolete groups:
comp.lang.pascal
comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components
**********************************************************************
1.1 History of the Group
**********************************************************************
comp.lang.pascal.borland was created by popular vote on
12 June 1995.
Historical information on this and other Usenet Pascal newsgroups
is available from:
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/pasgroup.zip
**********************************************************************
1.2 Posting Guidelines
**********************************************************************
a) "A problem well stated is a problem half solved" Charles F.
Kettering
b) Put as much information as you can in the subject line.
*Subjects like "help me" or "question about Pascal" are silly.*
Also note that some newsreaders truncate the subject line early.
c) If you have used one of the RTE200 patches. You are unlikely to
get any useful help unless you tell us: whose patch; from where;
BP/TP; Version Number; Real or Protected Mode; DOS/Win3/Win9x/?;
and *exactly* what the symptoms were and what the output was.
d) Usually, it will be sufficient to post to a single one of the
Pascal groups. But if you ever need to post to more than one
group, be sure to use a single cross-posted article rather than
multiple postings.
e) Please do not request the answer to your question solely via
email! Someone else will be interested and it is only polite to
the readers of this newsgroup. Remember also that public replies
are subject to peer review in case corrections and/or additions
are needed.
f) A "Thank you" after an answer that solved your query is a lot
nicer than a TIA. Do you ever give a TIA in real life?
g) We will not do your homework for you! We will, however, give
advice on specific topics and look at code that you have a
problem with. Show us what you have done already and pointers and
fixes will be forthcoming. Don't just post your assignment!
h) Be aware of limits. Try to keep your posting text lines to 72
characters or FEWER. If you use more, your posts may well look
messy when quoted.
i) Please ignore trolls who post or crosspost articles of an
inflammatory nature deliberately to try and cause mischief for
the group. Watch out for Follow-up: headers set to a different
group - your reply then goes to the other group and not
comp.lang.pascal.borland.
j) *Binaries must NOT be posted to this group.* Nor MIME
Attachments. (Especially nasty are those mailers which convert '='
to '=3D', a very bad thing to do to *any* Pascal source code.)
If you are wondering *why* binaries are banned, read this:
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/nobin.html
The rest of that very useful FAQ is worth a read also. You can
find it here:
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html
If you want to distribute binaries or large source files then you
could upload it to your own web site or to one of the FTP sites.
See the section
'Uploading your masterpieces to an FTP site'.
k) Do not post material that is not already in the public domain,
unless you have permission from the owner. If in doubt, quote
part of it and provide a link to the original.
l) Expressly forbidden is posting of any commercial material, for
example Turbo Pascal 7, or even just GRAPH.TPU. *This is illegal*
Do not even ask for these. Contact Borland if you have a problem.
Borland have released TP V1, V3.02 and V.5.5 for download. See
http://community.borland.com/museum/ - you may have to register.
m) Please, when replying to an article, only quote *as much as
needed* to show the context of your answer.
n) Post your comments or answer *below* the previous poster's text
as this is both basic Netiquette and a valuable aid to keep track
of the thread.
o) When posting problem code, please keep to the problem areas and
their context *and* show Var and Type declarations that are
involved.
p) Please indent your code, it may make postings a fraction bigger,
but it will increase the readability by an order of magnitude!
One indenter can be found on John Stockton's site,
http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/clean-tp.pas
John's program only changes indentation, nothing else!
Other fuller featured pretty-printers are available on Garbo:
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/goldies/bp7sb101.zip
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/bp7sb104.zip
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/epb256.zip
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/tpbeaut.zip
For on-the-fly beautification of your Pascal programs and use of
higher resolutions than those offered as standard (up to 132x60),
you may want to have a look at Alexander Petrosyan's "Borland
Pascal Autocorrector". It's here: http://paf.design.ru/bpr.html
q) Do *NOT* post in HTML format. Make sure you post only plain text.
r) Do *NOT* add source code using an attachment - merge your source
into the text of the article you are posting.
s) Please do not post source code that runs into many hundreds or
thousands of lines of code, the place for such code is on the Web
or at an FTP site.
t) Please note some articles are cross-posted to
borland.public.turbopascal
The Borland newsgroups are _not_ part of Usenet and do not accept
postings from outside the borland.* hierarchy. If your ISP
provides access to Borland newgroups, consider it read-only and
only reply through the official Borland news server!
More info about Borland newsgroups can be found at
http://www.borland.com/newsgroups/guide.html
u) If you want to post a follow-up via groups.google.com, don't use
the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on
"show options" at the top of the article, then click on the
"Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson
**********************************************************************
2. Where can I find more information?
**********************************************************************
Pascal FAQs:
- The infamous, ubiquitous, mandatory and downright useful Timo
Salmi's 'Common Turbo Pascal Questions and Timo's answers' is
available at ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsfaqp.zip
Note that this runs to over 150 questions and answers and a list
of Question Titles is posted monthly to comp.lang.pascal.borland
Be aware that it was last updated way back in January 2000...
- Jon Shemitz' original comp.lang.pascal FAQ
http://www.midnightbeach.com/jon/pubs/clp-faq.htm
- Pascal
...
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