XPost: alt.folklore.computers   
   From: tnp@invalid.invalid   
      
   On 02/01/2026 21:22, Carlos E.R. wrote:   
   > I certainly studied i/o in *what they told us* was standard pascal,   
   > using the original Wirth book.   
      
   (a) What they tell you is not always true.   
   (b) What is 'standard' is a moveable feast...   
      
   ...google sez...   
      
   "The statement "Pascal has no I/O" originates from   
   Brian Kernighan’s 1981 essay, "Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming   
   Language".   
      
   Kernighan argued that the original 1970 definition of Pascal was   
   severely limited for systems programming because:   
      
        No Low-Level Access: The language lacked a way to override its   
   strict type system, making it impossible to write its own I/O systems or   
   memory allocators *within the language itself*.   
      
        Fixed Array Sizes: Because array size was part of the type, a   
   function could not be written to handle strings or arrays of different   
   lengths, complicating general-purpose file I/O.   
      
        Lack of Portability: Standard Pascal’s I/O was considered   
   "primitive," and any real-world use required implementation-specific   
   extensions that broke portability between compilers."   
      
   --   
   “But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an   
   hypothesis!”   
      
   Mary Wollstonecraft   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)