Even if you are not a programmer, the Delphi 1 has a nice program called Resource Manager, and it can edit 16bit windows programs and drivers internal resources. Still use it to hack my windows 3.11 installations and programs. And display drivers for a new look.

Resource Workshop? Sadly it seems to be missing from this release actually! It just has an Image Editor tool which can only edit bitmap, cursor and icon resources. I suppose this makes some sense because you can draw your own application's interface in Delphi itself. I don't know what was included with commercial versions of Delphi but my Borland C++ Builder 6 did include an old Resource Workshop on the CD as a separate install, so maybe they excluded that from this release for some reason.

Sorry, yes Resource Workshop, I also got my Delphi full package with Resource Workshop from a computer magazine CD collection. Even got the original CD. Delphi 1 free and a Delphi 2 32bit demo.

Wasn't Turbo Pascal 3 made Freeware, too?
I vaguely remember that it was made Freeware by Borland itself, because it was a historic piece.

Edit: Yes, just checked. It's being mentioned on Wikipedia, too.

Cyberdyne wrote on 2023-06-12, 07:50:

Even if you are not a programmer, the Delphi 1 has a nice program called Resource Manager, and it can edit 16bit windows programs and drivers internal resources. Still use it to hack my windows 3.11 installations and programs. And display drivers for a new look.

I really recommend checking out Turbo Pascal for Windows 1.0, 1.5 or Borland Pascal for Windows.
They're the predecessors to Delphi 1.0, essentially.
They use the old OWL library which Delphi 1.0 still supports in addition to VCL.

While these compilers don't feature a nice RAD IDE yet, they can compile very efficient 16-Bit code (8086 and 80286).
The binaries can run on Windows 3.0 Real-Mode, even.

If you ever consider coding for Windows 3.0 running on an PC/XT, TPW is your friend. 🙂
It won't run itself here, but the compilated programs do.

Alternatively, Visual Basic 1.0 and MS Quick C 1.0 are worth a try.
They're good representatives of their languages (Object Basic and C).
VB 1 can run on Windows 3.0, still. 286+

Visual Basic also still has a degree of Quick Basic compatibility (VB DOS even more!).
Which is good, because Quick Basic was a mixture of Basic and Pascal elements.
Visual Basic 1.0 used global statements, which VB6 still supports (though it prefers Private Subs).

Edit: Speaking of development tools, there's a nice Icon Editor in PC-Tools 7 for Windows (by Central Point Software, not Symantec/Norton). .

from computer magazine cover disks alone over the years i slowly built a library of Delphi versions from 1 to 7 and some Builder too (even jbuilder!). Add in the other cover disk dev tools, the many free releases (like above) and occasional student/sign up and limited use versions of development software let alone all the completely free and open source dev software and the collection covers everything from 16bit dos onwards

i really liked turbo pascal, especially 5.5 onwards, Turbo c and c++ too

and VB3 is another that made gui so easy on windows 3.1, and carried on into 9x and nt4 days

QB was a whole online scene back in the late 90's too, quite nostalgic looking back 😀

and indeed, it is often to tools that came with the software that have the most lasting value like Cyberdyne mentions with Resource Workshop

7 is available online and i stalled seemlessly on Windows 10 (and seems to work at least initially). There was a small hitch though. It decried a missing file or missnamed file, and certain windows wouldn't appear. The file was actually there, but had the wrong extension or some such. After I renamed it everything seemed to be in order.

I have Kylix 3.0 Enterprise in my stash. It however won't run on Windows 10. Maybe Red Hat 10.

The Fraternal Order Of Delph (FOOD). I am the Grand Master.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-06-12, 13:02:

I really recommend checking out Turbo Pascal for Windows 1.0, 1.5 or Borland Pascal for Windows. They're the predecessors to Del […]
Show full quote

I really recommend checking out Turbo Pascal for Windows 1.0, 1.5 or Borland Pascal for Windows.
They're the predecessors to Delphi 1.0, essentially.
They use the old OWL library which Delphi 1.0 still supports in addition to VCL.

While these compilers don't feature a nice RAD IDE yet, they can compile very efficient 16-Bit code (8086 and 80286).
The binaries can run on Windows 3.0 Real-Mode, even.

If you ever consider coding for Windows 3.0 running on an PC/XT, TPW is your friend. 🙂
It won't run itself here, but the compilated programs do.

I struggled to get into Borland Pascal for Windows because I really wanted to be able to draw my interface like in Visual Basic - I didn't have the patience to do it the long way 😁 I'm enjoying Delphi in that regard. Maybe one day I'll backport my code to work on Windows 3.0 by porting it to a pre-Delphi tool. Obviously I'd have to write OWL code for the interface, and it appears I'd even need to implement my own resizeable list class to replace TList! It seems like the implementation of objects was more limited in BP7 too.

It turns out that the version of Delphi linked in my original post is 1.0, whereas they later released a 1.02, but not as a patch - it was something they would mail to you directly. It's a bit rude to only give away the buggy(ier) version for free!

One of the things they apparently fixed in version 1.02 was that they included more documentation. The Borland site (Wayback Machine link) had references to this additional documentation which was available for free:

Delphi 1.0 Object Pascal Language Reference Guide (objlang.zip 929K, unzipped .pdf Acrobat file is 1.3M)
Delphi 1.0 Visual Component Library Reference (vclref.zip 3.7M, unzipped .pdf Acrobat file is 5.1M)

Those files seem to be on this shovelware CD, in case anyone else wants them: http://cd.textfiles.com/ems/emspro17/disk2/DELUTIL/

I don't think that information was available in the Windows Help files, so I'm not sure why they didn't include it originally - did they forget, or did they decide that it was better to just ship it without than to wait for it to be written??

What is the last version that (presumably) allows compiling to 16 bit code? Is there such an option at all, or is it that there are 16 bit versions and 32 bit versions and the twain never shall meet? I imagine there has to be switches just as is the case with M$ products.

doshea wrote on 2023-06-26, 09:37:

It turns out that the version of Delphi linked in my original post is 1.0, whereas they later released a 1.02, but not as a patch - it was something they would mail to you directly. It's a bit rude to only give away the buggy(ier) version for free!

I remember these times from back then when my dad was working as a developer.
It was in the early 90s, when Beta testing for Windows 95 (Chicago) was still a phenomenon in IT.

Back then, the Windows world was pretty much still 16-Bit and so were databases and compilers.
Windows 3.x was still in the focus and allowed certain 32-Bit things (Windows 3.1 386 Enhanced-Mode kernal could use 'secret' WinMem32 API, Watcom had its Win386 Extender for Windows 3.0/3.1).

In those days, it wasn't uncommon to make phone calls and use fax machines.
Listings for certain API functions weren't being documented properly and you as a developer had to call another developer by phone.

In those times, you could call a company like Microsoft support and even get a real human being on the phone!

If you were lucky, they'd sent you a diskette with some files back or you would get a fax printout - on thermal paper.
You'd then read the printout and type in a FOO.H or FOO.C by hand and save it.

If you had a modem and, say, a CompuServe account, you could also receive an E-mail, of course.
Some CompuServe forums (GO something) also had files and topics about for a problem.

Calling a BBS (mailbox) was also possible, of course. Many companies had their own ones, along with a Sysop to call.

Unless the BBS in question was located in France or the US, then you were screwed as an European developer.
The phone calls into a foreign country were stellar, back then.

But you weren't a serious developer if you hadn't any subscription for service providers to any of these X.25 networks, anyway.

The years 1993-1995, in which Delphi 1.x was current, were quite chaotic in this regards, maybe.
Maybe Borland burried Delphi 1.x directly after Delphi 2 was ready and Windows 95 next door.

Delphi 2.x is intetesting in so far, because the compiler -at the heart- was still compatible with Windows 3.1+Win32s.

So perhaps it was already in development during the Windows NT 3.x days, when Delphi 1.x was current.
There was parallel development of Delphi 1 and 2, so to say.

And once Delphi 2 was ready, Delphi 1 was being burried and forgotten by Borland.

The patch to 1.02 was perhaps only known to internal developers at Borland, which still were tweaking/fixing Delphi 1 for Windows 95 compatibility.
But once Delphi 2/Windows 95 were available, it became superfluous, being only handed out on request.

Edit: I'm speaking under correction, of course. I was very young back then.
But Internet as such was very uncommon here in good old Europe.
We were more familiar with Minitel, Genie and such online-services.

Participating international E-mail correspondence was the #1 reason for us to have a CompuServe subscription.
(The CS mail addresses were still widely numeric back then, I remember. Like they were in the 80s.)

But originally, we had no CompuServe login in Europe.
So we had to use another service connect to CompuServe at the time.
WinCIM software even has a huge list of foreign networks for that purpose (see configuration dialog).

Of course, AOL also was an option. But it was very late by comparison.
It also had more of a consumer image.

Edit: The CD-ROM of Delphi 2 that I bought a while ago does ship with a free copy of Delphi 1.0 - for 16-Bit development.
So I suppose that Borland really gave up on Delphi 1+Windows 95 after Delphi 2 way out.

Delphi 1 nolonger was supposed to utilize the latest 16-Bit APIs introduced to Windows 95,
as it used to be during the Beta phase.

Edit: My apologies for the long post, I got carried away. 😅
That being said, there were a few 16-Bit NE applications that require Windows 95.
They used old 16-Bit, segmented code but wouldn't run on Windows 3.1x anymore.
So yeah, Windows 95 was a weird transitional time.

Edit: It's perhaps old coffee, err, news, but one popular method of checking for Windows 95 was by using the Win16 API call for version check.
Windows 95 would report itself as 3.95.
So Windows 95-enhanced Windows 3.1x applications would check the minor value for that.

Another, cleaner method would have been to use PlatformID function (available via Win16, too ?).
It has numeric values for Windows 3.1, Win32s, Windows 9x, Windows NT. And later on, Windows CE.
Funnily, it had rarely been used ever since its introduction.

Remember there were extensions to Wim 3.1 (or WFW 3.11 maybe) that essentially provided Wim95 functionality. It wasn't well used likely. Was it called the Win32S extensions?

Here in NJ I hadn't even heard of the internet until 1995. 1 of the local jamokes was making plans to become an ISP for that whole area (I only lived down there for about a year). It wasn't until 1998ish that the libraries had internet, but it was text based, and came with loads of restrictions (NJ is such an anal state). I learned early on how to bypass all that. Then they went full graphical www, and people were getting it on their homes through varies agents.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-06-26, 19:12:

If you were lucky, they'd sent you a diskette with some files back or you would get a fax printout - on thermal paper.

I think at one point I might have had a fax printout with a list of Microsoft Knowledge Base articles for some particular piece of software, and you could then request that a particular KB article be sent to you if you thought the title seemed useful. Maybe I still have it but it just looks like a blank piece of shiny paper now? 😁

Maybe Borland burried Delphi 1.x directly after Delphi 2 was ready and Windows 95 next door.

The patch to 1.02 was perhaps only known to internal developers at Borland, which still were tweaking/fixing Delphi 1 for Window […]
Show full quote

The patch to 1.02 was perhaps only known to internal developers at Borland, which still were tweaking/fixing Delphi 1 for Windows 95 compatibility.
But once Delphi 2/Windows 95 were available, it became superfluous, being only handed out on request.

Edit: I'm speaking under correction, of course. I was very young back then.
But Internet as such was very uncommon here in good old Europe.
We were more familiar with Minitel, Genie and such online-services.

I don't think it was buried. Delphi 1.0 came out the same year as the Borland C++ 4.52 update, which Borland sent to me, probably because I'd sent in the registration card, and from what I read online, the Delphi 1.02 update was distributed in much the same way - via the postal system - so I think that was just how they did updates back then.

I imagine that at that point it was still unreasonable to expect all their customers to have modems suitable for downloading what would have probably been quite a large patch, and to want to pay the relevant phone and service fees to do a long download.

They certainly did have some downloadable patches too but I suppose they were smaller.

Edit: The CD-ROM of Delphi 2 that I bought a while ago does ship with a free copy of Delphi 1.0 - for 16-Bit development.
So I suppose that Borland really gave up on Delphi 1+Windows 95 after Delphi 2 way out.

I think Borland C++ 5.0 came with 4.5 as well, and that some C++ Builder version(s) came/come with both Borland C++ 4.5 and 5.0, just to provide support for building for older platforms and/or perhaps to provide tools which can be hosted on older platforms.

That being said, there were a few 16-Bit NE applications that require Windows 95.
They used old 16-Bit, segmented code but wouldn't run on Windows 3.1x anymore.

As an example of this which I'm aware of, the book "Inside the Windows 95 Registry" by Ronald Petrusha discusses how the Windows 95 kernel (and I think NT 4, but not earlier versions) exposes some equivalents of Win32 registry APIs to 16-bit processes, so if you have some 16-bit code which you want to update to be able to use the newer registry features (like named values instead of only the default value), you can do that without having to port it to Win32. The sample code which O'Reilly make freely available includes some code to get access to those APIs despite them not existing in WINDOWS.H. That code was written by Andrew Schulman, since I guess he was the expert at finding hidden APIs!

I'm seem to recall there being a "Delphi16" tucked away in Delphi 4. I never used it. It's name suggests it compiles to 16 bit code.

chris2021 wrote on 2023-07-04, 01:54:

I'm seem to recall there being a "Delphi16" tucked away in Delphi 4. I never used it. It's name suggests it compiles to 16 bit code.

Thanks for the info! I've got a free version of Delphi 4 that came from a magazine cover CD, and while it doesn't include that directory, it says it contained Delphi 1.0, so unfortunately it's not some newer Delphi supporting 16-bit. I suppose it could be 1.02 rather than just 1.0.

doshea wrote on 2023-07-09, 06:34:

chris2021 wrote on 2023-07-04, 01:54:

I'm seem to recall there being a "Delphi16" tucked away in Delphi 4. I never used it. It's name suggests it compiles to 16 bit code.

Thanks for the info! I've got a free version of Delphi 4 that came from a magazine cover CD, and while it doesn't include that directory, it says it contained Delphi 1.0, so unfortunately it's not some newer Delphi supporting 16-bit. I suppose it could be 1.02 rather than just 1.0.

Hi. Speaking of magazine cover CDs.. The book "Delphi für Kids" shipped with Delphi 3.0 Professional on CD. Maybe Delphi16 (Delphi 1), too.
A later version of the book shipped with Delphi 7 Personal, afaik.

Delphi 7 is special in so far, that it can support GDI+ like graphic styles first time.
That's because it contains a manifest file support, which does Windows XP and higher make apply native GUI elements to compiled applications.
So they no longer look so dated (Windows 9x style).
Anyway, just saying. They continue to use GDI and stay Windows 9x compatible, too.

Edit: The new component im Delphi 7 is called "TXPManifest".
It's also possible to use manifest files from within Delphi 2 onwards.

Such an application can use the native GUI elements of Windows XP to 11,
while being able to execute on Windows 3.1+Win32s, still.

Re: Programs for building software (dos, windows 9x)

7 is also intertwines with Kylix.somehow, in that it proclaims it can compile for linux.

Someone mentiomed c++ 4.52. I know there were later versions, my original c text came with 5.5. But I have C++ Builder 3 as I recall. It comes with a version of c (or c++, nom Builder) that was their final commercial release? I may be daffy. Or just very tired.

chris2021 wrote on 2023-07-09, 08:16:

7 is also intertwines with Kylix.somehow, in that it proclaims it can compile for linux.

I think C++Builder 6 came with Kylix too.

Someone mentiomed c++ 4.52. I know there were later versions, my original c text came with 5.5. But I have C++ Builder 3 as I recall. It comes with a version of c (or c++, nom Builder) that was their final commercial release? I may be daffy. Or just very tired.

Based on a combination of Wikipedia and my memory:
C++ 3.1 was the last version with a DOS IDE
C++ 4.52/4.53 (I think the difference is whether CodeGuard is included) was the last version with a Windows 3.1 IDE
C++ 5.02 was the last version before C++Builder

C++ Compiler 5.5 was a free release of just the compiler with no IDE and apparently the compiler was from C++Builder

Wouldn't be surprised if your C++Builder came with Borland C++ 5.02.

Yes it did. I had a brain fart. The trailing 2 is what set it off.

Though my cd, that came with C How to Program, 3rd ed., had both 5.5 and iirc an evaluation version of builder. So I hope the wiki article didn't meld 2 somewhat diverse products. There was no ide, only command line tools for 5.5.