The 8051 core is one of the widely used microcontroller cores. It is about 30 years old and still very popular. Originally designed by Intel in late 1970s, 8051 core found its way into many popular microcontroller families manufactured by Atmel, Silicon Labs, NXP, and many others. One of the reasons for popularity of 8051-based microcontrollers is the availability of many excellent compilers, from freeware applications to high-priced professional development tools.
A very popular programming language is C. It is widely used in development of operating systems, desktop applications and embedded systems. Beside assembly language, C is the most popular programming language used for embedded programming. 8051 microcontrollers are no exception. SDCC is the most popular open-source C compiler for 8051 microcontrollers, while Keil (now an Arm company) makes the widely used and popular commercial development tools for 8051 microcontrollers.
But there are also other popular languages. One of them is Pascal. Named after French mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal, it was developed by Niklaus Wirth in late 1960s. The main objective of this programming language was to teach programming with emphasis on structured programming. Many schools used Pascal as introductory language to teach first steps in programming. Pascal is considered as a high-level programming language. Algorithms implemented in Pascal need little comment since the statements are composed of English keywords that clearly describe in English language what the statement does.
The most popular implementation of Pascal programming language was the Turbo Pascal compiler by Borland in early 1980s. The key to success was a compact compiler which generated executable code and an integrated development environment (IDE) where you could write, run and debug your programs. Turbo Pascal significantly contributed to popularity of Pascal programming language. In 1990s Turbo Pascal evolved into Delphi--a visual IDE for Windows.
In embedded systems Pascal is rarely seen. One of the reasons is probably the lack of Pascal compilers for microcontrollers. There is absolutely no reason why Pascal could not be used in embedded world. Regardless of the programming language used, the output of compilers, either C or Pascal, can be a compact optimized code. On the other hand, there is a plethora of libraries written in C language for any imaginable task. This usually implies using a C compiler for embedded development.
One of the successful implementations of Pascal programming language in embedded world is Turbo51--Pascal compiler for 8051 microcontrollers. It is a command line compiler with Turbo Pascal syntax. If you are familiar with Turbo Pascal then you will be able to quickly start programming for any 8051-compatible microcontroller. Turbo51 supports all memory models in 8051 and generates a compact and optimized code that can run even in memory-limited versions of 8051 microcontrollers.
It is up to you to decide which language you will use. Of course, in many cases this decision is already made because of portability or team development issues. But if you don't check other options you will never know about advantages they offer.
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