The nostalgia bug has bitten me this morning: computing has come a long way…
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My first CPU (aside from a PDP-11 at university) was a 6502. It’ll be a while until we see that in the library 
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Just took delivery of my brand new Commodore64 Ultimate (https://www.commodore.net/), so I’ll probably be looking into a bit of 8-bit 6510 development during my easter-vacation 
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MOS Technology 6502…the beating heart of the Apple I and Apple II…in 1976/1977. Together with the Zilog Z80 (an extended Intel 8080) these two CPU’s and their variants more or less kickstarted the home computer and game computer/console era.
The Z80 was also powering many coin-up arcade machines, like the iconic Namco Pac Man machines.
The 6502 and Z80 were also in the first computers I ever worked with: the Apple I/II (6502) and the Tandy TRS-80 (Z80). The TRS-80 was also my introduction into programming. Creating ASCII character based games, combining BASIC and direct read/write of registers and memory (peek for keys / poke to video mem).
And I also have warm memories gaming on the Commodore 64 (6510 and introducing the 6580/6581 SID Sound Interface Device chip, still emulated today for chiptune music, even available in VCV Rack) and on the ZX Spectrum (Z80).
Huh…half a century ago…
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My first personal computer was a KayPro II suitcase portable with a Z80, with two 8 inch floppy disks, running CP/M. I wrote many college papers on that, printed on an Epson tractor-feed dot-matrix printer. I convinced my programming profs to let me use Turbo Pascal instead of the Pascal on the Uni’s PDP-11 timeshare system from a terminal in the lab on campus. Also played a fair amount of Pacman on it :-).
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From 1983, mine first computers (at the same time) was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k (mainly for games) - using Zilog Z80 CPU and… cassettes, and an Apple II (MOS Technology 6502 CPU), for development & professional applications, with two 5”1/4 floppy drives and Chat Mauve extension board (to bring 80 colors). Apple II was replaced by a Lisa (loaned by a customer during two years) for specific 68000 developments, during 1986-87. Spectrum was replaced by Commodore Amiga 1000 for games and C.M. (personal developments by using Manx C and 68000 assembly, homemade MIDI interface).
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Borland’s Turbo Pascal…triggering another trip down memory lane
In the late seventies, when I was asked what instrument I would like to learn to play (yes, that was a thing back then), Piano, Guitar, Violin, Flute and such, my answer was Synthesizer. Because I thought synthesizers would eventually play any instrument and sound. But…this was unachievable at the time (e.g. rare and way too expensive).
So, when I encountered the first computers around the 1980s, I decided to use those and create a virtual synthesizer. But I soon ran into the limits of the hardware (early home computer/PC) and software / programming languages. As programming languages go, BASIC immediately ran into limitations. Then I got my hands on Borland Turbo Basic. But that soon ran into limitations too. Then I got somewhat on the way with Borland Turbo Pascal. But the hardware limitations were such that only Assembly or C might get me somewhere. Also, the knowledge I needed was very hard to gather (before the internet). I then abandoned the whole project.
In the end I had to wait some 20 years until Propellerhead Software released Rebirth RB-338 in 1996, leading to the era of virtual instruments (becoming Reason). In the same year (1996) Steinberg set the defacto standard for virtual plugin instruments/effects with their Virtual Studio Technology (VST).
In the 2000s affordable Virtual Studios (DAWs) that could run VST’s became more widely available (e.g. Steinberg Cubase and Reaper), running on affordable home computers.
In the meantime, in the early nineties, I finally got my first (hardware) synthesizers. Each with their own domain of speciality. A Kawai K5 (additive), a General Music S2R (incl sample mem), later traded in for a Kurweil K2000 (semi-modular multitool), a Yamaha SY77 (AFM + ROMPLER) and a Roland JD990 (mostly virtual analog). These just required a MIDI-sequencer that could easily run on a PC. I spent countless hours discovering their potentials.
Somewhere around the mid 2010’s I moved towards virtual and in-the-box on a laptop. Reducing the need for a lot of room, devices and wires. Gaining loads of flexibility. Ever more virtual instruments and effects became available, many free. But virtual modular synthesizers were still very rare (or very expensive). There were some efforts like g200kg Kamioooka, XSRDO Patchwork, Sonigen Modular and Full Bucket Modulair. Also some larger commercial project.
And then, around 2017/2018, Andrew Belt @Vortico pleasantly surprised the virtual modular world with the release of VCV Rack. Not only creating the amazing VCV Rack software/framework, but also creating this now buzzling and creative community.
Open Source Synthesis: Behind The Scenes With VCV Rack Creator Andrew Belt (2018)
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Oh yes, memories Here I have to toot my Danish horn. Turbo Pascal and the PolyPascal preceeding it, is/was a creation of the Danish programmer Anders Hejlsberg, notable for not only Turbo Pascal, but also Delphi, C#, Typescript and other things. Quite a guy. You can read the story here: Anders Hejlsberg - Wikipedia
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This is true for so many pioneers in so many domains. Freely clipped from a famous Winston Churchill quote: so much owed by so many to so few.
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Back in the day when I took my IT-education we used PolyPascal … ohh the “joy” of overlay-files swapping in and out of memory
But it was fairly easy to port your source to TurboPascal. I recall there was a 1-off with the GotoXY command (one started a 0, the other at 1 … forgot which was which)
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Ahh Turbo Pascal… still my favorite language.
Pool of Radiance (the old DOS game, not the Windows bug fest released years later) was written in it (along with almost every “Gold box” game), the DOS port of the game tends to lack a configuration utility: the game has to be reconfigured by installing it again from the original floppies or CD (which modern releases do not provide); granted, it can be configured by editing a text file… still… I wrote a configuration utility for it not too long ago… it can be compiled using Turbo Pascal or Free Pascal… it uses the not so fondly remembered Turbo Vision 
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