I know you hate the beige boxes, but there is no better IDE for Pascal than Turbo Pascal for MS-DOS. I'm pretty sure I first ran it on an XT class machine, but I'm sure someone here knows better than I do the most appropriate vintage configuration. I'd also consider Turbo C for MS-DOS. Or, if you want to go a different period direction, use cc on your Linux box and force yourself to use a command line editor (vi or Emacs). Further period enhance it by hooking up a period appropriate serial terminal (or your Apple IIe!) to your Linux box and give up the GUI entirely. Not so different having your terminal connect to a modern x86 Linux box than having your terminal connect to an IBM mainframe back in the 70s. -Adam On 1/19/2017 6:46 PM, Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
This has been a very educational thread for me.
It sounds like most people agree I should learn C or Pascal. C familiarity would serve me well as a computer historian. Pascal would make me a better (or at least less-sloppy) programmer.
If I try my hand at Pascal, then I know to seek a version of UCSD Pascal for Apple, that's knowledge I picked up as a historian. :)
If I try learning C, then I could go directly to K&R or even pick up a modern Dummies book, but for period's sake it would be the former.