This page details the history of the programming language and software product Delphi.

Roots and birth

Delphi evolved from Borland's Turbo Pascal for Windows, itself an evolution with Windows support from Borland's Turbo Pascal and Borland Pascal with Objects, fast 16-bit native-code MS-DOS compilers with their own sophisticated integrated development environment (IDE) and textual user interface toolkit for MS-DOS (Turbo Vision). Early Turbo Pascal for MS-DOS was written in a dialect of the Pascal programming language; in later versions support for objects was added, and it was named Object Pascal.

Delphi was originally one of many codenames of a pre-release development tool project at Borland. Borland developer Danny Thorpe suggested the Delphi codename in reference to the Oracle at Delphi. One of the design goals of the product was to provide database connectivity to programmers as a key feature and a popular database package at the time was Oracle database; hence, "If you want to talk to [the] Oracle, go to Delphi".

As development continued towards the first release, the Delphi codename gained popularity among the development team and beta testing group. However, the Borland marketing leadership preferred a functional product name over an iconic name and made preparations to release the product under the name Borland AppBuilder.

Shortly before the release of the Borland product in 1995, Novell AppBuilder was released, leaving Borland in need of a new product name. After multiple debates and market research surveys, the Delphi codename became the Delphi product name.

Early Borland years (1995–2003)

Borland Delphi Delphi (later known as Delphi 1) was released in 1995 for the 16-bit Windows 3.1, and was an early example of what became known as Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools. Delphi 1 features included: Visual two-way tools Property Method Event (PME) model TObject, records, component, and owner memory management Visual Component Library (VCL) Runtime Library (RTL) Structured exception handling Data-aware components live at design time Database support via BDE and SQL Links

Borland Delphi 2 Delphi 2, released in 1996, supported 32-bit Windows environments and bundled with Delphi 1 to retain 16-bit Windows 3.1 application development. New Quickreport components replacing Borland ReportSmith. Delphi 2 also introduced: Database Grid OLE automation Visual form inheritance TDataModule Long strings (beyond 255 ASCII characters)

Borland Delphi 3 Delphi 3, released in 1997, added: New VCL components encapsulating the 4.71 version of Windows Common Controls (such as Rebar and Toolbar) TDataset architecture separated from BDE DLL debugging Code insight technology Component packages, and templates, and integration with COM through interfaces. DecisionCube and Teechart components for statistical graphing WebBroker ActiveForms MIDAS three tier architecture

Inprise Delphi 4 Inprise Delphi 4, released in 1998, completely overhauled the editor and became dockable. It was the last version shipped with Delphi 1 for 16-bit programming. New features included: VCL added support for ActionLists anchors and constraints. Method overloading Dynamic arrays High performance database drivers Windows 98 and Microsoft BackOffice support Java interoperability CORBA development

Borland Delphi 5 Borland Delphi 5 was released in 1999 and improved upon Delphi 4 by adding: Frames Parallel development Translation capabilities Enhanced integrated debugger XML support ADO database support Reference counting interfaces

Borland Delphi 6 Shipped in 2001, Delphi 6 supported both Linux (using the name Kylix) and Windows for the first time and offered a cross-platform alternative to the VCL known as CLX. Delphi 6 also added: The Structure window SOAP web services dbExpress BizSnap, WebSnap, and DataSnap

Borland Delphi 7 Delphi 7, released in August 2002, added support for: Web application development Windows XP Themes Used by more Delphi developers than any other single version, Delphi 7 is one of the most successful IDEs created by Borland. Its stability, speed, and low hardware requirements led to active use, continuing into the 2020s on Windows 10/11 (updated in 2026).

Later Borland years (2003–2008)

Borland Delphi 8 Delphi 8 (Borland Developer Studio 2.0), released December 2003, was a .NET-only release that compiled Delphi Object Pascal code into .NET CIL. The IDE changed to a docked interface (called Galileo) similar to Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET. Delphi 8 was highly criticized for its low quality and its inability to create native applications (Win32 API/x86 code). The inability to generate native applications is only applicable to this release; the capability would be restored in the next release. Delphi 8 was released in a bundle with Delphi 7 allowing users to use Delphi 7 to generate native applications.

Borland Delphi 2005 The next version, Delphi 2005 (Delphi 9, also Borland Developer Studio 3.0), included the Win32 and .NET development in a single IDE, reiterating Borland's commitment to Win32 developers. Delphi 2005 included: Regained ability to compile native windows applications (*.exe) after being removed in Delphi 8. Design-time manipulation of live data from a database Improved IDE with multiple themes for ... in statement (like C#'s foreach) to the language. Multi-unit namespaces Error insight History tab Function inlining Refactoring Wild-card in uses statements Data Explorer Integrated unit testing

Delphi 2005 was widely criticized for its bugs; both Delphi 8 and Delphi 2005 had stability problems when shipped, which were only partially resolved in service packs. CLX support was dropped for new applications from this release onwards.

Borland Delphi 2006 In late 2005 Delphi 2006 (Delphi 10, also Borland Developer Studio 4.0) was released combining development of C# and Delphi.NET, Delphi Win32 and C++ (Preview when it was shipped but stabilized in Update 1) into a single IDE. It was much more stable than Delphi 8 or Delphi 2005 when shipped, and improved further with the release of two updates and several hotfixes. Delphi 2006 included: 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

Turbo Delphi and Turbo Delphi for .NET

On September 6, 2006, The Developer Tools Group (the working name of the not yet spun off company) of Borland Software Corporation released single-language editions of Borland Developer Studio 2006, bringing back the Turbo name. The Turbo product set included Turbo Delphi for Win32, Turbo Delphi for .NET, Turbo C++, and Turbo C#. There were two variants of each edition: Explorer, a free downloadable flavor, and a Professional flavor, priced at US$899 for new users and US$399 for upgrades, which opened access to thousands of third-party components. Unlike earlier Personal editions of Delphi, Explorer editions could be used for commercial development.

Delphi Transfer On February 8, 2006, Borland announced that it was looking for a buyer for its IDE and database line of products, including Delphi, to concentrate on its ALM line. Instead of selling it, Borland transferred the development tools group to an independent, wholly owned subsidiary company named CodeGear on November 14, 2006.

Codegear Delphi 2007 Delphi 2007 (Delphi 11), the first version by CodeGear, was released on March 16, 2007. The Win32 personality was released first, before the .NET personality of Delphi 2007 based on .NET Framework 2.0 was released as part of the CodeGear RAD Studio 2007 product. For the first time, Delphi could be downloaded from the internet and activated with a license key with its new InstallAware setup. New features included: Support for MSBuild, build events, and build configurations Enhancements to the VCL for Windows Vista dbExpress 4 with connection pooling and delegate drivers CPU viewer windows FastCode enhancements IntraWeb / AJAX support Language support for French, German, and Japanese

Delphi 2007 also dropped a few features: C#Builder due to low sales as a result of Visual Studio also offering C#. The Windows Form designer for Delphi .NET because it was based on part of the .NET framework API changed so drastically in .NET 2.0 that updating the IDE would have been a major undertaking.

Internationalized versions of Delphi 2007 shipped simultaneously in English, French, German and Japanese. RAD Studio 2007 (code named Highlander), which included .NET and C++Builder development, was released on September 5, 2007.

Delphi for PHP The CodeGear era produced an IDE targeting PHP development despite the word "Delphi" in the product name. Delphi for PHP was a VCL-like PHP framework that enabled the same Rapid Application Development methodology for PHP as in ASP.NET Web Form. Versions 1.0 and 2.0 were released in March 2007 and April 2008 respectively. The IDE would later evolve into RadPHP after CodeGear's acquisition by Embarcadero.

Embarcadero years (2008–2015) Borland sold CodeGear to Embarcadero Technologies in 2008. Embarcadero retained the CodeGear division created by Borland to identify its tool and database offerings but identified its own database tools under the DatabaseGear name.

Codegear Delphi 2009 Source:

Delphi 2009 (Delphi 12, code named Tiburón), added many new features: Full Unicode support in VCL and RTL components Generics Anonymous methods for Win32 native development Ribbon controls DataSnap library updates Build configurations Class Explorer PNG support

Delphi 2009 dropped support for .NET development, replaced by the Delphi Prism developed by RemObjects Software.

Codegear Delphi 2010 Source:

Delphi 2010 (code-named Weaver, aka Delphi 14; there was no version 13), was released on August 25, 2009, and is the second Unicode release of Delphi. It included: A new compiler run-time type information (RTTI) system Support for Windows 7 Direct2D canvas Touch screen and gestures Source code formatter Debugger visualizers Thread-specific breakpoints Background compilation Source Code Audits and Metrics The option to also have the old style component palette in the IDE.

Embarcadero Delphi XE Source:

Delphi XE (aka Delphi 2011, code named Fulcrum), was released on August 30, 2010, and improved upon the development environment and language with: Regular Expression library Subversion integration dbExpress filters, authentication, proxy generation, JavaScript framework, and REST support Indy WebBroker Support for Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Azure Build groups Named Threads in the debugger Command line audits, metrics, and document generation

Delphi Starter Edition On January 27, 2011, Embarcadero announced the availability of a new Starter Edition that gives independent developers, students and micro businesses a slightly reduced feature set for a price less than a quarter of that of the next-cheapest version. This Starter edition is based upon Delphi XE with update 1.

Embarcadero Delphi XE2

Source:

On September 1, 2011, Embarcadero released RAD Studio XE2 (code-named Pulsar), which included Delphi XE2, C++Builder, Embarcadero Prism XE2 (Version 5.0 later upgraded to XE2.5 Version 5.1) which was rebranded from Delphi Prism and RadPHP XE2 (Version 4.0). Delphi XE2 included: Native support for 64-bit Windows (except the starter edition) in addition to the long-supported 32-bit versions, with some backwards compatibility. Applications for 64-bit platforms could be compiled, but not tested or run, on the 32-bit platform. The XE2 IDE cannot debug 64-bit programs on Windows 8 and above.