UPDATE 1: Return to the MS-DOS Pascal, June 30th 2026 Update : r/pascal

Well, i'm kind of working on making my own game engine written in Turbo Pascal 7 for MS-DOS (something i couldn't achieve ~26 years ago), and this is just for pure nostalgic purposes.

Actual demo runs at about 50-55 fps.

Done:
- Tile System
- Big Maps (up to 1000 16x16 pixels tiles wide)
- Horizontal Scrolling

To Do:
- Vertical Scrolling (perhaps)
- Sprites sort of done (it will be a subclass of Tiles)
- Sprite Animation
- Collisions
- Sound maybe.
- Tile Editor
- Map Editor

Any advise is welcome and very appreciated. See you around.

I'm really excited to show you the progress in tools and demo of the tile engine i'm working on.

Tiles (and Sprites) Editor is somewhat complete for my needs.
Map Editor is lacking some tools to make it better but it works.

Demo now has the following progress:

Done:
- Tile System
- Big Maps (up to 1000 16x16 pixels tiles wide)
- Horizontal Scrolling
- Vertical Scrolling (Not shown in the demo)
- Sprites & Sprite Animations
- Collisions
- Sound and SFX
- Tile Editor (maybe ~80% done)
- Map Editor (~60% done)

To Do:
- Enemies
- "Projectiles"
- More levels

Thank you all for your support, any comments and suggestions are very welcome as always.

Original Post: Return to the MS-DOS Pascal : r/pascal
Update 1: Return to the MS-DOS Pascal, June 30th 2026 Update : r/pascal
Update 2: Return to the MS-DOS Pascal, July 2nd Update : r/pascal

Just managed to compile a 26+ year old small Delphi project imported to #Lazarus IDE. Simply convert a few DFM forms and a some window refresh tweaks. That's is. Perfect, fast build. This is truly a reviver of retro Pascal code. #FreePascal

Hi everyone 👋

I wanted to share a small (well… not that small 😅) project I’ve been working on to experiment with animations and rendering in Pascal.

I’ve started a Free Pascal port of Fallout 1 Community Edition:

👉 https://github.com/NDXDeveloper/fallout1-ce-pascal

It’s a line-by-line translation of the C++ source code of fallout1-ce (by alexbatalov) into Object Pascal, targeting Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) and producing a native Linux binary using SDL2.

The original project is a full reimplementation of the classic Fallout engine, and this port aims to reproduce it as faithfully as possible in Object Pascal.

Why?

Mainly to:

• Experiment with animations and low-level rendering in Pascal

• Explore how far modern Free Pascal can go on a real-world, non-trivial codebase

• Have some fun porting a large C++ project line by line into Object Pascal

Current status

So far, this works:

• Intro cinematics (Interplay logo, nuclear explosion, etc.)

• Main menu

• Starting a new game

• Entering Vault 13 (first level)

• Walking around the first map

Everything beyond that is still work in progress.

Technical details

• Free Pascal 3.2.0+

• SDL2

• Native Linux binary

• No C/C++ dependencies beyond SDL2

• Game data from a legal copy (GOG/Steam)

If you're interested in:

• Large Pascal projects

• Game engines in Pascal

• Porting C++ code to Object Pascal

• Or just curious about using FPC in 2026 on something ambitious

I’d love feedback, ideas, or even testers 🙂

Also happy to discuss architecture choices, translation decisions, performance considerations, or anything else Pascal-related.

Thanks!

The Lazarus team has released Lazarus 4.0.

From my side: Many thanks to the Lazarus team!

https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

My dad got his bachelor in CS in early 90's and as far as he told me they used Pascal as their programming language. Since he got into working he didn't care very much about learning life was so tough back then, he only cared about securing a long-term job and after a long journey he is about to retire this year or the next one. I need your help to get him back into programming world and software engineering in general.

Lazarus IDE with FPC 3.2.2 works on Windows, Mac, Linux and is a free download at:

https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

Making progress:

Done:
- Tile System
- Big Maps (up to 1000 16x16 pixels tiles wide)
- Horizontal Scrolling
- Sprites
- Sprite Animation
- Collisions
- Phisics (Sort of)

To Do:
- Vertical Scrolling (perhaps)
- Sound maybe.
- Tile Editor
- Map Editor
- Enemies

I'll work maybe on enemies, and then start working on the Editors.

I'll search for some tile and spritesheets in the meantime, i'm not an artist, so.......

See you next time.

Turbo Pascal is where it all started for me - school, 2003, programming olympiads, staring at that blue screen until midnight.

https://turbopascal.online

100% client-side in the browser tab.

You can also share your code as a link (File -> Share link...) - it gives you a short URL that loads your program straight into the IDE. Links live for 30 days.

I have pulled my old copies of Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs and Softwa,re Tools in Pascal to relearn what Pascal is like after a,lmost 35 years of not using it. I was a home software hobbies,t with TurboPascal 5.5, but with continual job changes I had to drop it. I am a retired electrical power rngineer who used the office computer to write work instructions, specifications, and read and write emails. Thus the hobbiest. Aren't those old books showing their age? What is avalable today to allow learning today's Pascal?

Built on top of the BGRABitmap graphic engine, these components offer high-quality, anti-aliased rendering perfectly suited for simulation software, avionics dashboards, industrial control panels, and audio software interfaces (Virtual Instruments/Mixers).

🚀 Key Features

20+ Interactive Components: Ranging from simple switches to dynamic radar screens and oscilloscopes.

High-Quality Rendering: Utilizes BGRABitmap for smooth gradients, drop shadows, glowing elements, and glass reflections.

Highly Customizable: Tweak colors, value ranges, and component states directly through the Lazarus Object Inspector.

Self-Contained: Rendering is purely drawn via mathematical code and BGRABitmap (no reliance on external bitmap assets for UI logic).

Link

https://github.com/CodeInPas/SkeuoCom/tree/main

Over the past months I’ve been working on SedaiBasic, an interpreter entirely written in pure Free Pascal.

• Implements Commodore BASIC v7 (with Tiny BASIC subset, multidimensional arrays, integer variables with % suffix, and all math/string functions of Commodore BASIC).

• Architecture highlights: FSM lexer with FastPath, Packrat parser with memoization, Pratt parser for expressions, Semi-Pruned SSA generator with 11 optimization stages, bytecode compiler with peephole and superinstruction fusion, and a VM with three register sets (Int64, Double, String), each auto-expanding from 256 slots up to 65,536.

• Benchmarks (n-body, spectral-norm, fannkuch-redux from The Computer Language Benchmarks Game) show SedaiBasic running 2–8× faster than Python.

Although written in Free Pascal, performance is comparable to interpreters in C. This is still a pre-release, but new features are coming quickly. SedaiBasic was developed with the aid of AI: the lexer and parser were initially hand-written, then refactored and eventually rewritten from scratch using Claude, which also helped build the compiler and VM.

👉 Source code is available on GitHub.

I’d be curious to hear feedback from the Pascal community—especially thoughts on using Free Pascal for modern interpreters and on the role of AI in language implementation.

I'm new to FreePascal programming. I've a lot of experience in programming in general. I recently tried Lazarus. I'm just wondering how did the community achieved a complex IDE with drag and drop design and cross platform compatibility with an open-source project. There is so much languages and projects that are not as achieved as this development environment. Was is developed from scratch ? Is it based on Delphi IDE ? Or is it just because the language itself is very productive to create usable software quickly (RAD).

I would like your point of view on this. How come it was achieved and it seems to be a complete workable solution and how come other languages/communities does not seem to be able to accomplish similar IDE.

EDIT 2024-09-07 : I would add PeaZip also on the amazing list. Total Commander too but Total Commander is Delphi rather than FreePascal. Although it is almost the same language, the IDE is different.

Thanks

Demo of crt functions in C64.