The original Turbo C/C++ were 16 – bit compilers as they were developed for 16 – bit CPUs (Intel’s 8086 Series of Microprocessors).Įven though Turbo C is discontinued and is not compatible with the current generation systems (like Windows 7, 8 and 10), many programmers and developers still prefer to use the old Turbo C environment. Turbo C/C++ was famous for its small size, speed of compilation, price, documentation and the whole integrated development environment. Turbo C++ replaced Turbo C in the year 1990 and later both were discontinued.
They were originally developed by Borland Software Corporation as a combination of Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and Compiler. Citing their user interface and continued emphasis on speed, the magazine stated that "for rapid prototyping there's not much better".Turbo C and Turbo C++ are compilers for C and C++ (C plus plus) Programming Languages. Reception īYTE in 1989 listed Turbo C and Turbo Pascal as among the "Distinction" winners of the BYTE Awards. In 2006, Borland's successor, Embarcadero Technologies, re-released Turbo C and the MS-DOS versions of the Turbo C++ compilers as freeware. 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. With the release of Turbo C++ 1.0 (in 1990), the two products were folded into one and the name "Turbo C" was discontinued.
Turbo C 2.0 was also released (in Germany only) for the Atari ST the program was not maintained by Borland, but sold and renamed PureC. It was also available bundled with Turbo Assembler and Turbo Debugger. Version 2.0 (late 1988) featured the first "blue screen" version, which would be typical of all future Borland releases for MS-DOS. This version introduced the header file (which provided fast, PC-specific console I/O routines). It was shipped on five 360 KB diskettes of uncompressed files, and came with sample C programs, including a stripped down spreadsheet called mcalc.
It included more sample programs, improved manuals and bug fixes. Version 1.5 (January 1988) was an incremental improvement over version 1.0.
It allowed inline assembly with full access to C symbolic names and structures, supported all memory models, and offered optimizations for speed, size, constant folding, and jump elimination. 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. Version 1.0 (May 13, 1987) offered the first integrated development environment for C on IBM PCs. 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, Lattice C, and Watcom C. Turbo C has similar properties to Turbo Pascal: an integrated development environment, a fast compiler (though not near the speed of Turbo Pascal), a good editor, and a competitive price. Borland followed up that success by releasing Turbo Basic, Turbo Prolog, and in 1987, Turbo C.
In the early 1980s, Borland enjoyed considerable success with their Turbo Pascal product and it became a popular choice when developing applications for the PC.