It all started 27 years ago in Scotts Valley...
IN THE BEGINNING
Delphi
27 YEARS OF INNOVATION
Rapid Application Development
UNPARALLELED
Visual Development Environment
AWARD WINNING
Worldwide Community
THIS IS DELPHI!
Happy Anniversary Delphi!
CELEBRATING
Valentine's Day February 14th 1995
Wayback Machine
Bill Clinton was President, Windows 3.1 was king, and CompuServe was still a thing. The R&D team at Borland Software Corporation which included Anders Hejlsberg, Gary Whizin, Chuck Jazdzewski, Dave Scofield, Allen Bauer, Hank Cox, Marc Cousineau, and Ray Kaestner released Delphi and changed the software development world forever.
BORLAND
Some Team Members Working On Delphi In 1995
In 1995 Delphi was lauded as the next generation Windows development tool, combining the most intuitive visual design environment with the unrivaled performance of a world-class optimizing native code compiler.
Rapid Application Development
27 Years Of Innovation
Fast compile times and rapid application development are bedrocks of Delphi development and today those same innovative features help bring Delphi applications to many platforms.
Object Pascal is the core language at the heart of the Delphi development environment. Pascal is a software development language created by Niklaus Wirth as a teaching language to help developers learn to program. Object Pascal is easy to learn and use. The Delphi compiler can compile over a million lines of Object Pascal code in just a few seconds.
Rapid application development is a core philosophy behind Delphi and is infused into every aspect of the development tool. Everything from fast compile times to visually building your application in real time Delphi delivers at every stage of the process.
The original Visual Component Library or VCL released in 1995 was a key component to the success of Delphi. Visual components that were easy to use and easy to expand drove innovation forward. The VCL has been greatly enhanced and expanded since then and a new cross platform framework called FireMonkey (FMX) has been added bringing Delphi to many different devices.
1995 to 2020
Delphi Versions
Twenty six years of innovation have brought Delphi 1 which targeted Windows 3.1 to Delphi 10.4.1 which targets Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux, and HTML5*!
Delphi Through The Years
articles
History And Future Of Delphi
Articles, white papers, interviews, blog posts, and much more!
Delphi 1 - February 14th, 1995
16-bit Windows 3.1 support, Visual Two-Way tools, Components / VCL, Database support via BDE and SQL Links, Database data live at design time
Delphi 2 (1996)
32-bit Windows 95 support, Database Grid, OLE automation, Visual form inheritance, Long strings, Included Delphi 1 for 16-bit
Delphi 3 (1997)
Interfaces (COM based), Code Insight, Component Templates, DLL Debugging, WebBroker, ActiveForms, Component Packages, MIDAS multi-tier architecture
Delphi 4 (1998)
Docking, Anchors and Constraints, Method Overloading, Dynamic arrays, Windows 98 support
Delphi 5 (1999)
Desktop layouts, Frames, XML support, DBGo for ADO, Language Translations
Delphi 6 (2001)
Structure Window, SOAP Web Services, dbExpress, BizSnap, WebSnap, DataSnap
Delphi 7 (2002)
Web application development, Windows XP themes
Delphi 8 (2003)
.NET support. The IDE in this release was changed to a docked interface.
Delphi 2005 (2004)
Multi-unit namespaces, Error Insight, History Tab, for..in, Function inlining, Theme-enabled IDE, Refactorings, Wild-card in uses statement, Data Explorer, Integrated Unit Testing
Delphi 2006 (2005)
Operator overloading, Static methods and properties, Designer Guidelines, Form positioner view, Live code templates, Block Completion, Line numbers, Change Bars, Sync-edit, Code Folding and method navigation, Debugging Tool-Tips, Searchable Tool Palette, FastMM memory manager, Support for MySQL, Unicode support in dbExpress, TTrayIcon, TFlowPanel, TGridPanel
Delphi 2007 (2006)
MS Build, Build Events, Build Configurations, Windows Vista support – glassing, theming, dbExpress 4 – connection pooling, delegate drivers, CPU viewer windows, FastCode enhancements, IntraWeb / AJAX support, Welcome Page, Sim-ship of English, French, German, Japanese
Delphi 2009 (2008)
Unicode, Generics, Anonymous Methods, Ribbon Controls, DataSnap, Build Configurations, Class Explorer, Type Library Editor Window, PNG support
Delphi 2010 (2009)
Attributes, Enhanced RTTI, Direct2D canvas, Windows 7 support, Touch/Gestures, Source Code Formatter, Thread Specific Breakpoints, Debugger Visualizers, IOUtils unit for files, paths and directories, Source Code Audits and Metrics, Background Compilation, Source code for MIDAS.DLL
Delphi XE (2010)
Regular Expression Library, Subversion Integration, dbExpress –Filters, Authentication, ProxyGeneration, JavaScript Framework, REST support, Indy WebBroker, Cloud – Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, Build Groups, Named Threads in the Debugger, Command line Audits, Metrics and Documentation Generation
Delphi XE2 (2011)
64-Bit Windows, Mac OSX, FireMonkey, Live Bindings – FireMonkey and VCL, VCL Styles, Unit Scope Names, Platform Assistant, DataSnap - Connectors for Mobile Devices, Cloud API, HTTPS support, TCP monitoring, dbExpress support for ODBC drivers, Deployment Manager
Delphi XE3 (2012)
Metropolis UI for Windows 8, 7, Vista and XP, FM actions, touch/gestures, layouts and anchors, FM support for bitmap styles, TMaterial source for FM 3D components, FM audio/video, VCL/FM support for sensor devices, FM Location sensor component, Virtual keyboard support, DirectX 10 support
Delphi XE4 (April 2013)
iOS support – device, simulator, iOS app store, iOS support for standard and retina displays, iOS styles, retina styles, virtual keyboards, Mobile form designer, TWebBrowser component, iOS ARC (automatic reference counting) for all TObject classes, Platform Services, Notifications, Location, Motion and Orientation sensor components, TListView component, Mac OSX full screen support, Deployment manager for iOS devices, FireDAC universal data access components, InterBase – IBLite and IBToGo
Delphi XE5 (September 2013)
Android support – devices and emulator. OS versions: Jelly Bean, Ice Cream Sandwich, and Gingerbread, Notification component, iOS 7 style support, Configurable form designer for mobile devices, Deployment manager for Android devices, REST Services client access and authentication components, Android support for all of the XE4 FM and database features listed above
Delphi XE6 (April 2014)
Windows 7 and 8.1 styles, Acces to Cloud base RESTful WEB Services, FireDAC Compatible with more databases, Fully integrated InterBase support
Delphi XE7 (September 2014)
FireMonkey Multi-Device Applications Support Both Desktop and Mobile Platforms, IBLite embeddable database for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, Multi-Display Support, Multi-Touch Support and Gestures Changes, Full-Screen Immersive Mode for Android, FireMonkey Supports the Pull-to-Refresh Feature for TListView on iOS and Android, FireMonkey Save State Feature
Delphi XE8 (April 2015)
GetIt Package Manager, FireDAC Improvements, New Embarcadero Community Toolbar, Native Presentation of TListView, TSwitch, TMemo, TCalendar, TMultiView, and TEdit on iOS, Interactive Maps, New Options for Media Library, InputQuery now Supports Masking Input Fields
Delphi 10 ‘Seattle’ (August 2015)
Android Background Services Support, FireDAC support for the NoSQL MongoDB database, FireMonkey controls zOrder support for Windows, New TBeaconDevice class for turning a device on one of the supported platforms into a “beacon”, StyleViewer for Windows 10 Style in Bitmap Style Designer, High-DPI Awareness and 4K monitors support, Windows 10 styles, Support for Android Services in the IDE, Support for calling WinRT APIs
Delphi 10.1 ‘Berlin’ (April 2016)
Android 6.0 Support, Windows Desktop Bridge Support, Address Book for iOS and Android, New ListView Item Designer, New CalendarView control, QuickEdits for VCL, High DPI Support on Windows, Hint Property Changes, EMS Apache Server Support, GetIt based Web installer
Delphi 10.2 ‘Tokyo’ (March 2017)
64-bit Linux support for Delphi, FireDAC provides Linux support for all Linux-capable DBMS, MariaDB support (v5.5), MySQL support for v5.7, and Firebird support for Direct I/O, QuickEdits for FMX, New VCL Controls for Windows 10, Updated IDE Look & Feel (Dark Theme), RAD Server Deployment License Included
Delphi 10.3 ‘Rio’ (November 2018)
C++ 17 for Win32, New Delphi Language Features, FireMonkey Android zOrder, Native Controls and API Level 26, Windows 10, VCL, and HighDPI improvements, Extensive IDE UI modernization, RAD Server architecture extension, Quality and Performance improvements
Delphi 10.3.1 ‘Rio’ (February 2019)
Expanded support for iOS 12 and iPhone X series devices. RAD Server Console UI redesign and migration to the Ext JS framework (available via GetIt). Improved FireDAC support for Firebird 3.0.4 and Firebird embedded. HTTP and SOAP Client Library Enhancements on Windows. Two new IDE productivity tools: Bookmarks and Navigator. 15 new custom VCL Windows and Multi-Device FireMonkey styles.
Delphi 10.3.2 ‘Rio’ (July 2019)
Delphi macOS 64-bit, C++17 for Windows 64-bit, C++ LSP Code Insight Improvements, RAD Server Wizards and Deployment Improvements, Enhanced Firebase Android Support, Delphi Linux Client Application Support
Delphi 10.3.3 ‘Rio’ (November 2019)
Delphi Android 64-bit support, iOS 13 and macOS Catalina (Delphi) Support, RAD Server Docker Deployment, Enterprise Connectors in Enterprise & Architect Edition
Delphi 10.4 ‘Sydney’ (May 2020)
Significantly enhanced high-performance native Windows support, increased productivity with blazing fast code completion, faster code with managed records and enhanced parallel tasks on modern multi-core CPUs, over 1000 quality and performance enhancements, and much much more.
Delphi 10.4.1 ‘Sydney’ (September 2020)
RAD Studio 10.4.1 has a strong focus on quality improvements to the IDE, Delphi Code Insight (LSP), Parallel Library, SOAP & XML, C++ Toolchain, FireMonkey, VCL, Delphi Compiler, and iOS Deployment.
Delphi 10.4.2 ‘Sydney’ (February 2021)
RAD Studio 10.4.2 has new components such as TControlList, TNumberBox, and an updated TEdgeBrowser. Additionally, it features compiler performance improvements and a strong focus on quality improvements to the IDE. Delphi Code Insight (LSP), the Parallel Library, SOAP & XML, C++ Toolchain, FireMonkey, VCL, Android, macOS, and iOS Deployment have all been upgraded or enhanced.
Delphi 11 ‘Alexandria’ (October 2021)
RAD Studio 11 adds high-DPI support to the IDE and the ability to see VCL styles at design time. It includes support for Windows 11 provisioning with integrated MSIX generation and a new compiler for the Apple ARM M1 processor. It also features new TRichEdit and TDBLabelEdit controls, Bluetooth improvements, Android 30 API support, an enhanced TZipFile component, and much more.
Delphi Books And Software Archive Circa 1995
UNPARALLELED
Rapid Application Development
Multiply your development resources with the power of Delphi.
DESIGN
Design your master UI layout once, then easily customize platform and device specific views without duplication of design effort
DEVELOP
Spend less time waiting for lengthy compiles with our highly optimized compilers for every platform. In some cases compile one million lines in seconds.
DEBUG
Get to the bottom of bugs faster with integrated cross-platform native debugging. Debug applications running remotely on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and Linux!
DEPLOY
Reach your users by creating apps for their preferred device. Create both desktop and mobile apps with one codebase and one UI.
T H I S I S D E L P H I
Compiling a Million Lines of Code with Delphi
AWARD WINNING
Visual Development Environment
Delphi has always been about creating apps faster with less coding effort. Today apps can be created for many platforms. Write once, compile everywhere. The core tenants launched in 1995 of the award winning VCL framework for Windows and FireMonkey (FMX) visual framework for cross-platform UIs provide the foundation for intuitive, beautiful user interfaces that wow users today on every platform: Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, and HTML5*.
Worldwide Developer Community
27 Years Of Innovation
technology
Capabilities
Are you ready to design the best UIs of your life?
David Intersimone
Embarcadero MVP and Former Delphi Chief Evangelist. David I. has been the face and voice of Delphi for many years. He recorded thousands of webinars training Delphi developers. Thanks David!
Jim McKeeth
Embarcadero Chief Developer Advocate & Engineer. Jim is the current voice and face of Delphi recording many webinars about Delphi. Thanks Jim!
Pawel Glowacki
Author of Expert Delphi and longtime Delphi Developer. Pawel was a long time advocate of Delphi and passed away in 2017. Rest in peace.
Marco Cantu
Senior Product Manager, Embarcadero. Marco is a leading expert on Object Pascal and Delphi and has published a number of books on Delphi. Thanks Marco!
Sarina DuPont
Director, Product Management, Embarcadero. Sarina is instrumental in bringing amazing features, UI, and UX experiences to Delphi and produces many of the product release videos. Thanks Sarina!
David Millington
Senior Product Manager, Embarcadero. David focuses on the C++ side of the RAD Studio product line and focuses on enhancing the Delphi IDE experience. Thanks David!
friends
Worldwide Developer Community
Millions of developers worldwide have used Delphi to help build a better world. Thank you to all of the Delphi developers, the Delphi community, and Embarcadero MVPs. You are what makes Delphi great!
DEVELOPERS
This Is Delphi
Long time Delphi developers and Embarcadero MVPs contributed their #Delphi25 Stories
