I just chucked out thirty years of Delphi programming memories. Don’t worry, that’s not as bad as it might sound.

Back in 1994, I started writing software for Windows. At the time, there seemed to be two entry paths. First was Visual Basic. Second was Turbo Pascal for Windows. Pick one or use both?

Visual Basic was initially quite attractive. I had written lots of Basic code for MS-DOS; for many of us, Basic was a great entry level programming language. As the name suggests, VB came with a drag-and-drop forms designer, perfect for Windows displays. By the time I started playing with it, VB 3.0 also came with the Jet database engine.

But, like its DOS forerunners, early versions of VB used interpreted code rather than native complied executables. With any kind of heavy duty math, they were very slow. So, I explored Turbo Pascal as an alternative, which compiled real programs for both processing and GUI.

In 1995, Turbo Pascal evolved into Delphi. In short order, Delphi moved beyond 16 bit (for Windows 3.1) to 32 bit (for Windows 95 and NT) and I was off to the races. Over the years, I have spent much time with Delphi 3, 5, 2005 and various flavors of XE. With more than 10,000 hours under my belt, I continue with Delphi 11.

In short, Delphi has never let me down or provided a roadblock to any of my aspirations.

Thirty Years of Delphi – Now Recycled

Recently, I have been clearing out my basement. This includes disposing of hard cover books and previous versions of legacy software. So, most of my Delphi books and packaging went into the Blue Bin this week.  CD’s into the garbage.

I still have all the reference materials I need – PDF files and online documentation. But I will never install or use old versions of Delphi or other software, so enough with nostalgia.

Still, lots of great memories associated with this stuff. The joy of installing a new version of Delphi and learning its features. Thirty years of Delphi was indeed a treat.