From: me7@privacy.net   
      
   On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 19:51:52 -0500, in   
   <9mnf1157nr7vblga9jbfr20fbqcpaavejq@4ax.com>, Jud McCranie   
    wrote:   
      
   >On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 00:34:02 GMT, Jim Higgins  wrote:   
   >   
   >>  My best guess is that BP7 died as a product before 1995.   
   >   
   >BP wasn't updated after Delphi 1 came out in 1995, but I think BP 7   
   >remained in a their product list for a couple of years after that.   
      
   I think 1995 probably does comes close to marking the date BP was   
   withdrawn as a product.  It hadn't been updated since March 1993.   
      
   As I recall there was only one BP from Borland's perspective and   
   that was BP7.  It was released about Nov 1992.  All files on the   
   distribution media were dated 10-27-92, 7:00 AM.  That would be   
   what we call Ver 7.00.  Borland called it "Borland Pascal with   
   Objects 7.0."   
      
   This product had some bugs in the compiler, in the RTL, and in   
   Turbo Vision, and was silently updated in March of 1993.  Those   
   ordering after that time got the new version.  We call that   
   version Ver 7.01 because all files on the distribution media were   
   dated 3-9-93, 7:01 AM.  Borland continued to call it "Borland   
   Pascal with Objects 7.0" and as I recall never officially   
   mentioned an update or bug fix.   
      
   Borland never did anything proactive to make good on the   
   defective Ver 7.00 release... probably because most never   
   triggered the bugs, or if they did didn't notice them.  If you   
   bought the 7.00 version and noticed it had bugs and complained,   
   you got 7.01 (media) for free.  If you bought 7.00 and later   
   needed "replacement disks" due to failed or damaged media, then   
   you got replacement media which contained the Ver 7.01 release   
   for $19.95.  I went that route when I heard a bug fix was   
   available, then followed it up with an email to Customer Support   
   and they very graciously refunded the $19.95.  I wanted the fixed   
   version even if I had to pay for it, but the refund was a nice   
   touch.  I suppose those who never dug any deeper than dealing   
   with the front line folks paid $19.95.   
      
   Borland ran out of Ver 7.01 media between Aug 1998 (when I got   
   mine and told everyone how I got it) and early 1999 when several   
   were told no more were available.   
      
   Bugs which were fixed in BP 7.01 include:   
      
      1.  Some range and overflow checks with byte and shortint   
   which were implemented incorrectly in both the RTL and   
   TurboVision.   
      
     2.  A bug involving the shift (SHL and SHR) instructions for   
   longint operands with shift values between 16 and 31 gave wrong   
   results when run on a 386/486 (and maybe a Pentium) processor.   
      
     3.  GetDir did not return an invalid drive error (error 15)   
   when called with a nonexistent drive.   
      
     4.  For programs compiled with $N+, there was a problem with   
   properly identifying/differentiating true INFs and NaNs.   
      
     5.  The EXP function when used for very small REAL arguments   
   could signal overflow rather than underflow to zero.   
      
     6.  There was some sort of problem converting denormals to true   
   zeros when using an 8087 coprocessor.   
      
     7.  Denormals in EXTENDED format were not properly converted to   
   decimals by the Str and Write routines.   
      
     8.  Initialization routines did not check properly so as to   
   prevent programs compiled for the 286 with $G+ directive from   
   running on an 8086/88.   
      
   There may be more.   
      
   --   
   Jim Higgins   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)