Borland Turbo BASIC
Shares rank 12 of 26 compilers by recommenders
Borland's compiled BASIC, praised as a great introduction to compiled programming and for an interface well ahead of its time.
Borland's compiled BASIC, praised as a great introduction to compiled programming and for an interface well ahead of its time.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Interface ahead of its time
“This interface is magical when comparing with Turbo Pascal 3.3 and 4.0.”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “Borland Turbo Basic” “The coloured shortcut letters in the menus are such a nice touch.”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “Borland Turbo Basic” “amazing interface for the time”
Comment from 6 Oct 2026 in “Borland Turbo Basic” Good introduction to compiled BASIC
“Already a great experience with a structured compiled BASIC in 1991”
Comment from 1 Mar 2026 in “PureBasic: The Quiet Survivor” “it was a great introduction to compiled BASIC”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “Borland Turbo Basic” Fondly remembered by users
“which I had quite some fun with”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “Ada, Its Design, and the Language That Built the Languages” “1980s me would have loved this.”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “Borland Turbo Basic”
Other compilers people recommend
The four most recommended other compilers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GCC | 138 | 123 | 53% | 12 | 15 yrs9 owners | — |
| Clang | 74 | 50 | 60% | 12 | — | — |
| Free Pascal compiler | 38 | 7 | 84% | 11 | — | Approved |
| GraalVM Native Image | 31 | 9 | 78% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Borland Turbo BASICThis page | 11 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“amazing interface for the time”
“1980s me would have loved this.”
“The coloured shortcut letters in the menus are such a nice touch.”
“written for humans, not lawyers”
“This interface is magical when comparing with Turbo Pascal 3.3 and 4.0.”
“It was fairly capable and being able to make an EXE out of a basic program felt like magic”
“which would have seemed a little clunky for a TUI by the end of the 1980s”
“Turbo BASIC wasn't my first BASIC”
“it was a great introduction to compiled BASIC”
“they had actual examples that you could see it working, copy/paste modify”
“It was so useful that Foxpro built a migration tool to port your dbase databases and code to Foxpro.”
“which I had quite some fun with”
“Already a great experience with a structured compiled BASIC in 1991”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.