@c Copyright (C) 1995-2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
@c For copying conditions, see the file gpc.texi.
@c This file is part of the GPC Manual.
@c
@c Authors: Jukka Virtanen <jtv@hut.fi>
@c          J.J. van der Heijden <j.j.vanderheijden@student.utwente.nl>
@c          Peter Gerwinski <peter@gerwinski.de>
@c
@c Last modification: 27 May 2000 (file up to date)

The purpose of the GNU Pascal project is to produce a Pascal
compiler (called GNU Pascal or GPC) which

@itemize @bullet
@item combines the clarity of Pascal with powerful tools suitable
for real-life programming,

@item supports both the Pascal standard and the Extended Pascal
standard as defined by ISO, ANSI and IEEE (ISO 7185:1990, ISO/IEC
10206:1991, ANSI/IEEE 770X3.160-1989),

@item supports other Pascal standards (UCSD Pascal, Borland Pascal,
Pascal-SC) in so far as this serves the goal of clarity and
usability,

@item may be distributed under GNU license conditions, and

@item can generate code for and run on any computer for which the
GNU C compiler can generate code and run on.
@end itemize

Pascal was originally designed for teaching. GNU Pascal provides a
smooth way to proceed to challenging programming tasks without
learning a completely different language.

The current release implements Standard Pascal (ISO 7185, level 1),
a large subset of Extended Pascal (ISO 10206, aiming for full
compliance), is highly compatible to Borland Pascal (version 7.0)
with some Delphi extensions, and provides a lot of useful GNU
extensions.
