FPC 3.2 Pascal Compiler Released In 2020 - Even Adds Windows 3.0 16-bit Support

The Pascal programming language is 50 years old this year. The Free Pascal Compiler for Pascal / Object Pascal is out with version 3.2 to celebrate, five years since FPC's previous 3.0 stable series. Somewhat amusing. this FPC 3.2 compiler update adds a Windows 16-bit target support for building Pascal code for Windows 3.0+.

The Free Pascal 3.2 compiler adds support for custom attributes, can generate LLVM bitcode on Linux/macOS platforms, support for the WinAPI directive, and many other language support improvements. The many language changes and more are outlined via this Wiki page.

On the CPU target front, FPC 3.2 has initial support for 64-bit Arm (AArch64) on Linux/Android/Darwin, support for POWER PPC64LE on Linux, Android x86_64 support, and even experimental support for a 16-bit Windows target. Windows 3.0 and later are supported by this i8086-win16 target. Building for the 16-bit Windows target needs to be cross-compiled from 32-bit or 64-bit Windows or Linux. Those wondering about Free Pascal's Win16 support can see this Wiki page.

Download FPC 3.2 or learn more about this leading free software Pascal compiler via FreePascal.org.