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I remember Turbo Pascal 3.0, the one that generated COM files for MS-DOS (like EXE files, but about 2KB smaller).

I loved that Turbo.com and COM files 30 years ago!

later I started to use Turbo Pascal 5.5 with OO support and a good IDE.

Not only that, but Turbo Pascal was very efficient as a linker too, linking only library code that was actually used in the program, as opposed to Turbo C/C++ that would link the entire library. As a result, "Hello, World" was ~2KB for TP vs. ~15KB for TC. I may not remember the sizes correctly, but the difference was dramatic. Of course, for bigger programs the difference was a bit smaller. And it was fast!

Jeff Duntemann's book on Turbo Pascal is still one of my favorite texts of all time. He combined his enthusiasm for the subject with a deft hand at explaining concepts intuitively.

And of course, there was Peter Norton's Guide to the IBM PC. The bible, back then.

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