Stuff you find that shows you’ve been around this programming business for a while:

Most people these days are surprised that Symantec actually sold a C++ compiler at some point. I used this particular copy in my first, not very successful business venture - I started out using Walter Bright’s Zortech C++ compiler which eventually morphed into Symantec C++.

At the time, I preferred this compiler to Microsoft’s C++ compiler - it was a much faster compiler and while the generated code wasn’t quite as fast as the Microsoft compiler’s one (and the code produced by that one was beaten hands down by the Watcom C/C++ compiler, which I also used at some point), it was a considerably faster compiler. All of the C++ compilers of that era were, err, slightly quirky and portability of the code between them - if it wasn’t plain C - was still a distant dream.

Symantec C++ was a bit of a niche product and eventually lost the popularity contest to the Microsoft C++/Borland C++ compiler duopoly, with companies like Watcom filling specialist niches.

I even found an old Dr Dobbs’ article by Al Stevens where he’s looking at the above compiler.