What is with people on HN using a specific example and then getting annoyed when I respond to it? You specifically said Apple launched the original Mac without C. Which is true, but the implication that it used Pascal is not. I'm not addressing what happened years later.
Can you elaborate on these historical tellings? From what I found on folklore.org, Lisa OS had a bunch of Pascal, and the Mac system borrowed a bunch of Lisa code, but it was all hand-translated to assembly in the process.
> When Apple began development of the Macintosh (1982) Apple used Lisa Pascal and the Lisa Workshop for system software development.
> Object Pascal for the Macintosh was developed by Apple starting in 1985 to support more rapid and more standardized development of Macintosh programs. Available for only MPW, Object Pascal is a descendant of the Lisa Clascal compiler.
> The key Apple player behind Object Pascal was Larry Tesler who recruited the help of Niklaus Wirth, the creator of Pascal, to clean up the syntax of Clascal.
Object Pascal was used to develop the extensive MacApp class library. This library was fully documented by Apple via several books and the source code for MacApp was provided to developers.
> Macintosh development in the early days (circa 1983-1985) was done using the Apple Lisa computer and its Lisa Workshop development environment. I originally used a Lisa 2/5 model which contained 1M byte of RAM, an internal 400K 3.5" Sony floppy drive, and an external 5M byte ProFile hard drive (yes, 5M as in mega bytes was considered a rather large drive in those days). I later used a Lisa 2/10 model which had an additional 10M byte internal Widget hard drive which gave me a total of 15M bytes of hard drive storage.
> The Lisa Pascal language was very powerful and compiled Pascal source files to Motorola 68000 object code files. I never found a need to use the Workshop's 68000 assembler since everything I needed for my application could be written in the higher level Lisa Pascal language. Macintosh application resource information was created as text files which were then compiled to a binary format using the RMaker resource compiler. Transferring a Macintosh object program from the Lisa to the Macintosh required the Lisa utility program MacCom which copied Lisa files to a Macintosh formatted disk in the Lisa's 400K internal disk drive. MacCom combined separate Lisa data and resource fork files which were stored on the Lisa's hard drive and stored them as single documents on the Macintosh floppy.
> Macintosh programming was based on a collection of programming libraries called "units" in Pascal parlance. These resided on the Lisa and implemented the Macintosh application programming interface (API) called the Toolbox and Operating System by Apple. These libraries came on Lisa formatted disks called the Lisa Macintosh Supplement. I recall receiving around 3 or 4 supplements each with around a half dozen disks with these libraries. These disks also contained Macintosh utility and sample applications such as the Uriah Heap desk accessory by Andy Hertzfeld (called desk ornaments in the early days), the Edit text editor, and the File application by Cary Clark which showed detailed examples of Macintosh programming.
Folklore.org has many stories about writing Lisa OS code in Pascal, about rewriting various pieces in assembly for the Macintosh, and developing apps in Pascal, but I can’t find any mention of actually writing any part of the original Mac system in Pascal.
Nothing you’ve quoted says otherwise. The closest is the very first sentence, but all it says is that Pascal was in use at Apple when the Macintosh project began, not that it was used for that project.
Now I'm wondering if you actually understand the difference between providing a Pascal interface and actually using Pascal to implement the stuff. That manual discusses the interface.
I'm happy to change my view given evidence, but you have yet to provide a single word of evidence that there was any Pascal in the original Macintosh system.
