Turbo Vision

Last updated
Developer(s) Borland
Initial release1990;35 years ago (1990)
Written in
Operating system MS-DOS
Platform IBM PC compatible PC-98
Type Widget toolkit
License Public domain software [1] [2]
Website tvision.sf.net
Turbo Vision based IDE for Turbo C++ Turbo CPP Compiler.jpg
Turbo Vision based IDE for Turbo C++

Turbo Vision is a character-mode text user interface framework included with Borland Pascal, Turbo Pascal, and Borland C++ circa 1990. It was used by Borland itself to write the integrated development environments (IDE) for these programming languages. By default, Turbo Vision applications replicate the look and feel of these IDEs, including edit controls, list boxes, check boxes, radio buttons and menus, all of which have built-in mouse support. Later it was deprecated in favor of Object Windows Library, the Win16 API, and the GUI tools of Borland Delphi.

Contents

Around 1997, the C++ version, including source code, was released by Borland into the public domain [1] [2] and is currently being ported and developed by an open-source community on SourceForge under the GPL license. [3] An older update of the Borland code by Sergio Sigala is available under the BSD license.[ citation needed ]

The Pascal version, which was distributed alongside Borland Pascal 7 on a "bonus" disk, was never released under a free software license, so the Free Pascal project recreated its own version by backporting a clone made by Leon de Boer that ran in graphical mode back to textmode. The result is called Free Vision. [4] Over the years this codebase has grown stable on nearly all operating systems and architectures that FPC supports. The textmode IDE is very close to the original TP environment, with built-in compiler and IDE much closer than e.g. RHIDE, and supporting functionality like code folding.

Unicode support

One of the factors limiting Turbo Vision's popularity was the absence of Unicode support in the original Borland version. As of October 2020, there are Unicode versions for C++ [5] and Free Pascal. [6]

Third-party implementations

Third-party Turbo Vision implementations
Project nameActiveLatest releaseLast updateUnicode supportLanguageGraphicalPlatformsLicense
Turbo Vision (magiblot) [7] [8] YesNo stable releases (according to GitHub) [7] [8] As of May 2025, project is active [8] Yes (UTF-8) [7] [8] C++ [7] [8] NoDOS, Linux, Windows [7] [8] MIT [8]
Free Vision [9] [10] [11] YesFPC 3.2.2 [12] As of February 2025, project is active [13] Yes (since February 2022) [9] [10] [11] Pascal [9] [10] [11] NoMost platforms supported by FPC (tested on Linux and Windows) [9] [10] [11] LGPL with linking exception [9]
TVision port to the GNU compiler [14] No2.0.3 [14] 17 November 2016 [14] NoC++ [14] NoDOS, FreeBSD, Linux, QNX, Solaris and Win32 [14] GPL [14]
Port for Virtual Pascal [15] No2.1 Build 279 [15] 13 May 2004 [15] No informationPascal [15] NoWindows, OS/2, Linux [15] No information
GraphVision [16] [17] No2.01 [16] [17] 23 April 2001 (file date) [16] No informationPascal [16] [17] YesDOS (graphics mode) [16] [17] No information
TVision (Sergio Sigala) [18] No0.8 [18] 10 August 2001 [18] NoC++ [18] No Linux and FreeBSD [18] BSD-like [18]
Port for TMT Pascal [19] [20] NoNot specified18 August 2000 (file date) [20] No informationPascal [19] [20] NoDOS (TMT Pascal) [19] [20] No information
Graphics Vision (MKM Software) [21] No3.0 (DOS/DPMI/Windows), 2.10R2, 2.01 (DOS) [21] 9 February 1999 (version 3.0) [21] No informationPascal [21] YesDOS, Windows, Linux (GV/FPC), DPMI [21] Free for individual use, commercial license, DOS libraries - LGPL [21]
Super Vision [22] No2.2 [22] UnknownNo informationPascal [22] YesDOS (SVGA) [22] No information

Applications using Turbo Vision

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Tvision "What about copyrights? [...] According to a FAQ entry in the Borland's site (was in http://www.inprise.com/devsupport/bcppbuilder/faq/QNA906.html%5B%5D when I saw it) the code is public domain. I also asked in the Borland's newsgroup and the TeamB people (not official people but they are who give technical support in the net) said me the FAQ was right."
  2. 1 2 Turbo Vision - by Borland Developer Support Staff on community.borland.com/ "Question: Where can I find the public domain version of Turbo Vision? Answer: It can be found at ftp.inprise.com/pub/borlandcpp/devsupport/archive/turbovision/" (1998, archived)
  3. ↑ tvision.sf.net on sf.net
  4. ↑ Free Vision on freepascal.org
  5. ↑ "Turbo Vision". GitHub . 26 October 2021.
  6. ↑ "Free Vision - Free Pascal wiki". wiki.freepascal.org. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "Turbo Vision". GitHub . 26 October 2021.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "magiblot/tvision: A modern port of Turbo Vision 2.0, the classical framework for text-based user interfaces. Now cross-platform and with Unicode support". GitHub. Retrieved 2023-10-27.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 "Free Vision - Free Pascal wiki". wiki.freepascal.org. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  10. 1 2 3 4 "Free Vision - Free Pascal wiki". wiki.freepascal.org. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Free Software for DOS, Text Editors".
  12. ↑ "Free Pascal - Advanced open source Pascal compiler for Pascal and Object Pascal - Home Page". www.freepascal.org. Retrieved 2025-05-31.
  13. ↑ https://gitlab.com/freepascal.org/fpc/source/-/commits/main/packages/fv?ref_type=heads
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Turbo Vision port to the GNU compiler and more". tvision.sourceforge.net. Archived from the original on 2006-08-19. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 "Virtual Pascal: Article / Main Features". web.archive.org. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 "Скачать GraphVision v2.01. Графический TV - Turbo Pascal". tpdn.ru. Archived from the original on 2022-02-12. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  17. 1 2 3 4 "GraphVision v2.01. Графический TV". pascal.sources.ru. Archived from the original on 2022-02-12. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  18. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "TVision homepage". www.sigala.it. Archived from the original on 2022-02-12. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  19. 1 2 3 "Turbo Vision 2.0 Ported to TMT Pascal". pascal.sources.ru. Archived from the original on 2022-02-12. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  20. 1 2 3 4 "Скачать Turbo Vision 2.0 Ported to TMT Pascal - Turbo Pascal". tpdn.ru. Archived from the original on 2022-02-12. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "MKM Software". www.math.ucdavis.edu. Archived from the original on 2022-02-12. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  22. 1 2 3 4 "Graphics Vision v2.2 - Turbo Vision for SVGA Graphix". pascal.sources.ru. Archived from the original on 2022-02-12. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  23. ↑ Rudge, Owen (2025-03-24), orudge/osplus , retrieved 2025-05-28
  24. ↑ "tmbasic/THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md at master · tmbasic/tmbasic". GitHub. Retrieved 2025-05-28.
  25. ↑ magiblot (2025-05-17), magiblot/tvterm , retrieved 2025-05-28
  26. ↑ magiblot (2025-05-17), magiblot/tvterm , retrieved 2025-05-28
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