Turbo C is a discontinued

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools ...

(IDE) and

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...

for the C programming language from Borland. First introduced in 1987, it was noted for its integrated development environment, small size, fast compile speed, comprehensive manuals and low price. In May 1990, Borland replaced Turbo C with Turbo C++. In 2006, Borland reintroduced the Turbo moniker.

Early history

In the early 1980s, Borland enjoyed considerable success with their

Turbo Pascal Turbo Pascal is a software development system that includes a compiler and an integrated development environment (IDE) for the Pascal programming language running on CP/M, CP/M-86, and DOS. It was originally developed by Anders Hejlsberg at ...

product and it became a popular choice when developing applications for the PC. Borland followed up that success by releasing

Turbo Basic PowerBASIC, formerly Turbo Basic, is the brand of several commercial compilers by PowerBASIC Inc. that compile a dialect of the BASIC programming language. There are both MS-DOS and Windows versions, and two kinds of the latter: Console and Wind ...

Turbo Prolog Visual Prolog, previously known as PDC Prolog and Turbo Prolog, is a strongly typed object-oriented extension of Prolog. As Turbo Prolog, it was marketed by Borland but it is now developed and marketed by the Danish firm PDC that originally crea ...

, and in 1987, Turbo C. Turbo C has similar properties to Turbo Pascal: an

, a fast compiler (though not near the speed of Turbo Pascal), a good editor, and a competitive price. While Turbo Pascal was successful with hobbyists and schools as well as professional programmers, Turbo C competed with other professional programming tools, such as

Microsoft C Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) is a compiler for the C (programming language), C, C++ and C++/CX programming languages by Microsoft. MSVC is proprietary software; it was originally a standalone product but later became a part of Microsoft Visual Stu ...

Lattice C The Lattice C Compiler was released in June 1982 by Lifeboat Associates and was the first C compiler for the IBM Personal Computer. The compiler sold for $500 and would run on PC DOS or MS-DOS (which at the time were the same product with differe ...

, and Watcom C.

Version history

Version 1.0 (May 13, 1987) offered the first integrated development environment for C on IBM PCs. Like many Borland products of the time, the software was bought from another company (in this case Wizard C by Bob Jervis), and branded with the "Turbo" name. It ran in of memory. It allowed

inline assembly In computer programming, an inline assembler is a feature of some compilers that allows low-level code written in assembly language to be embedded within a program, among code that otherwise has been compiled from a higher-level language such as C ...

with full access to C symbolic names and structures, supported all memory models, and offered optimizations for speed, size, constant folding, and jump elimination. Version 1.5 (January 1988) was an incremental improvement over version 1.0. It included more sample programs, improved manuals and bug fixes. It was shipped on five 360 KB

diskette A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined wi ...

s of uncompressed files, and came with sample C programs, including a stripped down spreadsheet called mcalc. This version introduced the header file (which provided fast, PC-specific console I/O routines). Version 2.0 (late 1988) featured the first "blue screen" version, which would be typical of all future Borland releases for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

. It was also available bundled with Turbo Assembler and

Turbo Debugger Turbo Debugger (TD) is a machine-level debugger for DOS executables, intended mainly for debugging Borland Turbo Pascal, and later Turbo C programs, sold by Borland. It is a full-screen debugger displaying both Turbo Pascal or Turbo C source and c ...

. Turbo C 2.0 was also released (in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

only) for the Atari ST; the program was not maintained by Borland, but sold and renamed PureC. This version introduced the header file, which provided the Borland Graphics Interface already included in

. With the release of Turbo C++ 1.0 (in 1990), the two products were folded into one and the name "Turbo C" was discontinued. The C++ compiler was developed under contract by a company in San Diego, and was one of the first "true" compilers for C++ (until then, it was common to use pre-compilers that generated C code, ref.

Cfront Cfront was the original compiler for C++ (then known as " C with Classes") from around 1983, which converted C++ to C; developed by Bjarne Stroustrup at AT&T Bell Labs. The preprocessor did not understand all of the language and much of the code wa ...

Freeware release

In 2006, Borland's successor,

Embarcadero Technologies Embarcadero Technologies, Inc. is an American computer software company that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports products and services related to software through several product divisions. It was founded in 1993, went public in 2000, ...

, re-released Turbo C and the MS-DOS versions of the Turbo C++ compilers as

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

Reception

BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...

'' in 1989 listed Turbo C and Turbo Pascal as among the "Distinction" winners of the BYTE Awards. Citing their user interface and continued emphasis on speed, the magazine stated that "for rapid prototyping there's not much better".

References

External links