It was 25 years ago, today (May 2, 1983) that Borland was founded here in Scotts Valley California (actually the company was formally registered in San Jose California). Twenty-five years of innovations, product releases, announcements, and events including some listed below.
- 1983: Borland International founded by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn (CEO)
- 1983: Turbo Pascal v1.0 released ($49.99)
- 1984: SideKick launched
- 1986: Taken public on London’s Unlisted Securities Market (USM)
- 1987: Borland Announces Turbo C v1.0
- 1988: Turbo Pascal v5.0 ships with integrated debugger and dynamic memory manager
- 1988: Turbo C v2.0 ships with integrated debugger
- 1988: Turbo Assembler, Turbo Debugger, and Turbo Profiler v1.0 are released
- 1989: US IPO on NASDAQ, Quattro Pro spreadsheet launched
- 1990: Borland Announces Turbo Pascal v5.5 (with objects) and Turbo Debugger v1.5
- 1990: Borland Ships Turbo C++ v1.0
- 1991: Borland Ships Turbo C++ and Turbo Vision
- 1991: Turbo Pascal for Windows v1.0 with Object Windows Library
- 1991: Acquisition of Ashton-Tate is completed
- 1992: Borland C++ v3.1 is released with Object Windows Library
- 1992: Borland C++ for OS/2 ships
- 1994: Borland Announces Interbase 4.0
- 1995: Delphi v1.0 is launched on Valentine’s Day
- 1995: Borland includes Java plug-ins within Borland C++ 5.0
- 1996: Delphi v2.0 is released - first 32-bit version of Delphi, support for Windows 95
- 1997: JBuilder v1.0 is launched
- 1997: C++Builder v1.0 is released
- 1998: Acquisition of Visigenic is completed
- 1998: Name of company changed to Inprise (Integrating the Enterprise)
- 2000: JBuilder v3.5 is released - first all Java version of JBuilder IDE
- 2001: Name of company changed to Borland Software Corporation
- 2002: Borland Completes Merger with Starbase and Galaxy Acquisition Corp - StarTeam and CaliberRM
- 2003: Delphi for .NET ships - first Delphi version to support .NET v1.0
- 2003: Borland Acquires TogetherSoft
- 2006: Announced Developer Tools Group would become a wholly-owned subsidiary CodeGear; Acquired Segue Software with its base of testing products
- 2006: JBuilder 2007 is released, first JBuilder built using the Eclipse framework
- 2007: Delphi for PHP v1.0 ships - CodeGear’s first PHP IDE, includes the VCL for PHP component library
- 2007: 3rdRail v1.0 is released - CodeGear’s first Ruby on Rails IDE
- 2008: Delphi/400 is released - Delphi and Delphi for PHP RAD/Visual connectivity to IBM Series i (AS/400) computer systems
You can see additional Borland/CodeGear timeline events at the Computer History Museum.
Serguei Dosyukov keeps an up to date History of Pascal and Delphi page.
We’re 25 years young. You’ll continue to see new innovations, products, and announcements for years to come. Post your favorite Borland/CodeGear programming moments and remembrances as comments to this blog post.
Thank you to all of our customers for your support and encouragement for the past 25 years!
{ 13 } Comments
Congratulations to all for the longevity. I don’t suppose customers sharing the same birthday get free upgrades to Architect? lol. Lance
Congrats Davit, and you seem to have lived through all that. Hope to see you and your coworkers around for years to come.
*David (sorry)
Congratulations! Time is a magic thing. Memories about Turbo Pascal are still fresh
Ps. I’d like to contribute to your list with this reference http://www.dragonsoft.us/delphi_history.php.
Thank you for additional information.
Congratulations!
David
I still remember Turbo Pascal 7, TurboMan.
See you in Chile
You didn’t list the Turbo Pascal 4.0 release!
It was a big, big step for TP. I got my copy for 100$ cdn (probably about 60$ US at the time).
If you happen to have a spare boxed copy around, I lost my manual a long time ago and would love the chance to replace it… That was a well written manual - if you get the chance, show it and the manuals for TPW 1.5 and Borland Pascal For Windows 7.0 to the document teams as an area where the documentation use to truely excel. (The Delphi 1 and Delphi 2 manual sets were also exceptionally good documentation)
Congrats to all! Thanks for making programming funnier and more productive for all these years!
Congratulations. Ahh, those old/good dos times, where Turbo line of product was rally shining…
Anyhow, I scanned history your briefly described, and my eyes scratched those strange lines, which look not entirely correct.
1988: Turbo Pascal v5.0 ships with Turbo Vision and integrated debugger
1990: Borland Announces Turbo Pascal v5.5 (with objects) and Turbo Debugger v1.5
I do visually recollect that nice TurboVision look, and IIRC it was a TP6.0 which originally released with TurboVision. And besides all TV was an object framework, it can’t be implemented in 5.0 where there weren’t objects yet. Though, TurboDebugger was very similar to that we get in TV. Was it a precursor for final TV look?
Timur - thank you for the notes - you are right about TV not part of TP5, my mistake (fixed now). TP5.0 included the dynamic memory manager for larger applications (replacement for TP3’s overlay manager).
C Johnson - thank you for the nice comments about TP4. It was an important release for sure - adding units for separate compilation. Originally TP4 was also supposed to get the dynamic memory manager (included in TP5) as a replacement for TP3’s overlays, but the new memory manager (marketing name VROOMM) wasn’t ready for the TP4 ship timeframe. We asked PK for permission to delay the release of TP4 so that we could get the new memory manager in, but he countered by asking us how much of our paychecks we would do without to delay TP4. Some customers couldn’t move their TP3 applications to TP4 because of they were too large. When TP5 came out all was well for the TP3 overlay users.
You forgot Kylix
Also it would be nice to show how the price of a Turbo Pascal / Delphi box developed over time 
Developed? I think you mean mushroomed. Looking back at the huge power, great documentation and outstanding price of the Turbo Pascal series makes me long for those days. The latest IDE versions can’t keep the keyboard focus, crash frequently, quicker and better results to search the net for help than use the local help file, and the price makes me wince. Our small company is bleeding heavily to buy Delphi. I long for the good old days…
More program for Turbo Pascal as free on www.trsek.com/pas
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