of immediate fascination to me in that article is a single line:
"Originally I programmed in Rascal, a language developed at Reed College which was sort of a cross between C and Pascal."
Rascal turns out to be short for "Real-Time Pascal" - an entire software development kit programmed by Richard Crandall, Scott Gillespie and Greg Stein. there is very, very little known about it - aside from a handful of games (like Billiard Parlour - screenshot attached) and applications written with it in the mid 80s. it was sold by MetaResearch of portland OR in the 80s, and then completely disappeared.
worse, a copy of the (interpreter?) compiler/sdk/ide has never surfaced. reed college apparently has copies of it in its special collections! sadly, i'm nowhere near reed college.
the finding aid page is fascinating:
https://archivesspace.reed.edu/repositories/2/resources/41
a deep search of discmaster turned up exactly one artifact which was interesting: the world's only surviving Rascal source code! it at least gives us a peek at what programming in Rascal was like.
https://discmaster.textfiles.com/view/14165/MacTech-vol-1-12.toast/Source/MacTech®%20Magazine/Volume%2002%20-%201986/02.08%20Aug%2086.sit/02.08%20Aug%2086/pascal/Rascal%20source/KeyboardSleuth.src
(* Include files and constants *)
(*$U+*) (* Turn on full Uses *)
Uses __Windows, __QuickDraw,uToolIntf,uOSIntf,uPackIntf,__PackTraps;
Link __NoSysCall,__PackTraps; (* Make small stand-alone application *)
(* This is to Rascal procedure _EVENT what the first parameter
of GetNextEvent is to other languages
*)
EventMask 10; (* mouseDown(2) + keyDown(8) *)
CONST
Key1Trans = $29E; (* Low Memory Globals *)
Key2Trans = $2A2;
EOL = 13; (* end of line file delimiter (RETURN) *)
(********************************* ASCII values **************************)
Space = $20; (* *)
(* The following are Key #10, where US,UK "/" is (key # differs in US)
*)
Slash = $2F; (* / UK *)
Minus = $2D; (* - German, Spanish, Swedish *)
Equals = $3D; (* = French *)
Ograve = $98; (* Italian *)
Eaigu = $8E; (* French Canadian *)
