alt.hn

5/7/2026 at 5:58:52 AM

Show HN: TRUST – Coding Rust like it's 1989

 https://github.com/wojtczyk/trust

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 1:18:27 PM

Looking at this makes me nostalgic in a way the author probably hasn't intended.

Rust is notorious for its slow compile times, while Turbo Pascal was known to be blazingly fast. And the debugger, one of the most important part of the experience is "Not implemented". Dressing it as a 1989 IDE makes me painfully aware of what we have lost. Despite running on hardware that were orders of magnitudes slower than today, software used to be more responsive.

By "more responsive" I mean that while modern systems are excellent at batch processing, latency is often not great, and because so much happens in parallel, also confusing.

by GuB-42

5/7/2026 at 2:45:55 PM

Some of us still haven't lost it thanks to Delphi, C++ Builder, .NET or even Java.

However they aren't fashionable in the days of Electron and CLI nostalgia.

So you end up with Go on vim, instead of FreePascal on Lazarus.

by pjmlp

5/7/2026 at 9:16:11 PM

Heck, some of us haven't even given up on Perl.

by cwnyth

5/7/2026 at 9:56:35 PM

I don't use it very often anymore (except for oneliners or simple one-offs) but I still like it!

by mpyne

5/8/2026 at 5:18:00 AM

Quite useful still.

by pjmlp

5/7/2026 at 1:47:55 PM

It was intended to evoke emotions. I really consider this more of an art project than a developer tool.

I will see about the debugger.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 3:07:03 PM

>> Rust is notorious for its slow compile times

Don't forget Haskell. And what's other... C++, OCaml, etc?

I guess a language with complex/complicated design is difficult to be compiled "blazing fast"

by anta40

5/7/2026 at 7:00:51 PM

Rust is not alone to compile slowly. And yes, there are reasons, but if you want to pick a language to fit the Turbo Pascal vibes, that's not it.

Zig and Go would probably be better modern languages for this. Also "Turbo Zig" and "Turbo Go" sound cool, "Trust" sounds too corporate :)

by GuB-42

5/9/2026 at 8:32:38 AM

Or Blooshed Dev-Zig

Heck, the UI is in Delphi.

by fithisux

5/7/2026 at 8:33:30 PM

Not really, because contrary to Rust, Haskell, C++ and OCaml have faster alternatives, even though some people decide to ignore them to their own pain.

Haskell has GHCi, where you can pre-compile modules and play around in the repl with code that is more in flow.

OCaml has a bytecode interpreter, and a repl, thus you can compile only what you need, and do the full compilation for proper releases.

C++, well, yes it is slow, if you don't make use of binary libraries, external templates, incremental compilation and incremental linking, parallel builds, hot code reloading (VC++ and Live++), or REPLs (ROOT/cling, Clang-Repl).

by pjmlp

5/7/2026 at 3:24:15 PM

Right, we can appreciate a lot of the heavy weight lifting by the compiler or blazing fast translations... in the latter case an assembler would do

by wojtczyk

5/9/2026 at 2:37:33 AM

Scala is painfully slow to compile too

by japgolly

5/8/2026 at 1:10:21 AM

There are hardware reasons too, related to polling frequencies etc.

Great article for those interested in the matter:

https://danluu.com/input-lag/

by TacticalCoder

5/8/2026 at 3:17:40 AM

Great article. Thanks for sharing.

by wojtczyk

5/8/2026 at 6:18:50 PM

What do you mean the debugger is "not implemented"? I debug Rust code all the time with CodeLLDB. Works perfectly. Better than C++ in most ways.

by IshKebab

5/8/2026 at 6:54:44 PM

That's referring to this specific retro-style IDE, which doesn't yet have a debugger UI; selecting the "Debug" menu item produces a "not implemented yet" error.

by ameliaquining

5/7/2026 at 12:44:23 PM

Well not quite, unfortunely Rust still has a bit to catch up with 1989, it isn't only the Turbo Vision inspired IDE.

https://ia801901.us.archive.org/5/items/TurboPascal55/Antiqu...

> Fast! Compiles 34, 000 lines of code per minute

https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_borlandtur5.5Brochure1...

Measured on a a IBM PS/2 Model 60, meaning an Intel 80286 running at 10 MHz with 640 KB for MS-DOS, up to 8 MB depending on extenders and HMA configurations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/2_Model_60

And if you feel using the language complexity excuse for 2026 hardware, see OCaml, Delphi, D, or C# AOT.

by pjmlp

5/7/2026 at 1:48:45 PM

Thank you for the references!

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 9:50:20 AM

I haven't felt a lot of desire to code in Rust but I do now! Absolutely applaud this project - it's completely tugged on the retro nostalgia strings for my Turbo Pascal days. Also one of the reasons I enjoy the previously HN featured Microsoft Edit project immensely - https://github.com/microsoft/edit. Thank you OP

by awhenderson

5/7/2026 at 1:54:08 PM

Thank you! I appreciate your feedback

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 9:19:34 AM

Cool! I assume TRUST stands for "Turbo Rust"? If yes, maybe it would be worth mentioning that in the readme. I doubt that Embarcadero Technologies (the current owners of the Delphi and C++ Builder IDEs, and probably also the owners of other former Borland trademarks) would mind - but then again, it doesn't hurt to stay on the safe side...

by rob74

5/7/2026 at 1:51:16 PM

I can neither confirm nor deny what the T stands for. However a quick research showed some trademarks are current and renewed.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 10:15:58 AM

Random aside: Back in the day Microsoft used the "Quick" prefix and Borland used "Turbo". I am waiting for a QRUST.

by weinzierl

5/7/2026 at 10:32:54 AM

VisualRust

by gpderetta

5/7/2026 at 1:52:29 PM

haha - someone should do it

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 7:08:32 PM

Nowadays it would be called VisualRust365 with CoPilot. And suck.

by tosti

5/7/2026 at 8:41:59 PM

But we can make a Windows NT 3.51 version of Visual Rust, that doesn't suck.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 1:52:10 PM

QRUST - I love that

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 3:15:52 PM

Of course a pole would love it! (Only mean it positively:-) )

by sourcegrift

5/7/2026 at 3:28:11 PM

I didn't read it any other way than positively only

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 11:53:04 AM

Staying on the safe side would be not confirming whether it stands for Turbo Rust or not. "You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment."

by monadgonad

5/7/2026 at 5:56:47 PM

The blue CRT glow of Turbo C++ / QBasic 4.5 IDE at 12 AM when I've snuck up in the middle of the night to poke around on the family computer on a school night when I was ~10 years old... I love this.

by nazgulsenpai

5/7/2026 at 6:26:41 PM

Happy to hear that. Thank you!

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 10:20:58 PM

was here, done that !

by septune

5/7/2026 at 7:45:22 PM

Thank you for that - I’m definitely going to look into it. I realize that I lost the fun in coding. I’m in a different career stage now as well, but just seeing this reminded me of how I started a long time ago implementing snake, learning about graphics mode, double buffering / page flipping etc.

Everything felt exciting and so close to really understanding what’s going on. And just seeing the blue text interface reminded me of how much fun that was…

by doubtfuluser

5/7/2026 at 8:40:13 PM

I am glad to hear how the project resonates with you and other people here. I was reading an article about coding in the 90s and thought, the best time I had was on our first computer. Starting out with Basic, Pascal, Assembly and C++. Text mode, VGA mode, INT 10h ... what fun

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 1:51:21 PM

The window screenshots are clearly from macOS 26, the rounded corners look so broken. If Rust ran in DosBox, we would have the perfect 1989 emulator.

by 0rbiter

5/7/2026 at 3:25:09 PM

Thanks for the feedback, maybe I'll redo the screenshots

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 4:23:46 PM

I recommend VHS generally for these (we use them for all the ratatui screenshots generally). I'm also playing around with doing a rust version of this (https://www.joshka.net/betamax/)

by joshka

5/7/2026 at 6:29:31 PM

Thanks, I was looking into a terminal recorder last night, but then it was kind of late. I will look into VHS.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 10:32:58 PM

Turbo Vision library, which apparently inspired TRust, had a great object model, in which you could derive built-in classes implementing controls, windows, validators etc., extend them by adding custom functionalities and seamlessly plug them into the system. Imagine extending the built-in TEditor class to handle syntax highlighting, or extending TDialog to handle complex multi-tab option dialogs.

To beat 1989 and Turbo Pascal, TRust must do that (perhaps the Rust's way).

by HackerThemAll

5/7/2026 at 2:18:59 PM

This needs to have DOS builds available. Is it performant enough for 90s hardware? I know the rust compiler itself isn't really.

by 3836293648

5/7/2026 at 3:15:27 PM

I think one of the earlier OCaml versions of the Rust compiler would be lean enough to be usable on a mid-90's PC.

by rho_soul_kg_m3

5/7/2026 at 3:16:28 PM

Just noticed in cannot build a standalone Rust source file

"error: could not find 'Cargo.toml'"

I assume first need to create a project by "cargo new" ...?

Anyway, love the good ol' Turbo Pascal 7 Reference. Haven't touch it for more than 1 decade.

by anta40

5/7/2026 at 3:21:22 PM

Thanks for letting me know. I shall add that.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 11:24:26 PM

I want an editor like this with proper vim support. Anyone know of any?

by segmondy

5/8/2026 at 7:02:35 AM

1989, this was the style of ide my school used to teach me C in 2015, so many frustrations, that turbo C was very very unpleseant to work with

by shreyas_p_238

5/9/2026 at 7:03:42 PM

Thanks for sharing. Though, in the 80s and 90s this was cutting edge and so much better than what we had before.

by wojtczyk

5/9/2026 at 8:31:11 AM

I like it. I will posdibly use it just for the nostalgia.

by fithisux

5/9/2026 at 7:04:11 PM

Thank you! That is what it was meant for :D

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 10:46:12 AM

Ah, Norton Commander takes me back

by eithed

5/7/2026 at 2:08:23 PM

Same here. I need to fire up my PC AT again.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 7:30:56 AM

Because Rust deserves a blue-screen IDE from the olden days and someone had to do this...

by kaant

5/7/2026 at 1:54:52 PM

Thank you for noticing! :D

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 10:12:11 AM

Maybe I should start a project rewriting pctools 5.0 in rust!

by WiSaGaN

5/7/2026 at 2:07:42 PM

I would love to see that.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 9:37:31 PM

My first experience with programming was QBASIC in like 1997 - looked just like this. Minus the anti-aliased fonts, and a far lower resolution.

by whalesalad

5/7/2026 at 9:44:32 PM

To me it looks more like the early versions of Borland C++ for MS-DOS but yes similar TUIs.

https://imgur.com/a/qspuIBj

by vunderba

5/7/2026 at 10:47:21 PM

I very much remember QBASIC. It created a lot of joy for me. But I went for something slightly different here.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 4:25:41 PM

Ha - I see it's Ratatui based. Nice work there :D

by joshka

5/7/2026 at 4:26:47 PM

Thank you! Ratatui was super helpful

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 8:43:58 PM

If only it would fit on a floppy.

by forinti

5/7/2026 at 9:30:52 PM

Well, in release mode it is currently 1048KB. Works for a 3.2" HD

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 11:18:49 AM

Embed nvim in the right pane!

by sourcegrift

5/7/2026 at 2:03:49 PM

Thank you for the feedback. I may actually add that option.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 9:19:46 AM

Honestly the experience looks pretty nice. Which is crazy to say for such an old style of program but I kind of like it. Perhaps just nostalgia for a time I never got your experience.

by vsgherzi

5/7/2026 at 10:25:29 AM

A year or so ago I spent half a day writing some Rust on an actual DEC glass teletype (VT520) connected to a Debian box. I used vim and shell job control (^Z, jobs, fg, etc.) to switch between tooling and a persistent text editor. It made me feel things.

by q3k

5/7/2026 at 2:05:36 PM

I can imagine. Thank you for sharing! I just saw one in the Computer History Museum.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 10:04:42 AM

I'm not mad at this at all. It probably runs with like 20kb if RAM.

I realize the author is probably just having fun, but if a few modern features added to this and I would probably try it.

Multi cursor, a little terminal window, some way to do code hints or intelligence. This would be a dream boat lol

by 2ndorderthought

5/7/2026 at 11:47:25 AM

https://github.com/boxed/TurboKod

I started this just for the lulz, but now I've got:

copy/paste/undo

multiple cursors

debuggers

syntax highlighting (even nested languages with jetbrains style comments!)

find-in-files

integrated documentation

integrated git client (roughly modeled after lazygit)

spell checking

and tons more that I can't even remember

by boxed

5/7/2026 at 12:26:32 PM

It's pretty awesome and inspires me more than lulz. Highly successful art project if you ask me

by 2ndorderthought

5/7/2026 at 12:28:48 PM

Thanks.

I'm thinking it could be a sort of reference implementation to build your own custom IDE the way you like it. I'm going to attempt to get TurboKod to be good enough to be my daily driver, we'll see how it goes.

by boxed

5/7/2026 at 2:01:36 PM

OP here. Thanks for sharing! I love your project. Looks very polished and true to the experience.

And yes, TRUST got started for the lulz and feels.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 2:22:08 PM

Have you tried Fresh? Has everything you listed and more

https://getfresh.dev/

by staplung

5/7/2026 at 1:59:25 PM

Thank you! I may build this out further. I just wanted to get started and feel like back then; share and see what happens. If I am the only one who is excited about this.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 1:57:12 PM

Thank you! It was meant to evoke emotions.

by wojtczyk

5/8/2026 at 10:56:00 AM

Love it, congrats.

by RivoLink

5/9/2026 at 7:04:44 PM

Thank you! I am surprised about all the feedback.

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 11:58:51 AM

nice (and clever) name!

by AbuAssar

5/7/2026 at 3:01:30 PM

I actually expected an unsafe-only Rust because of the name and the "archaic" date (of course, "safe" languages did exist at the time, if not low-level and safe ones).

Still, cool project.

by ahartmetz

5/7/2026 at 3:33:10 PM

unsafe-only Rust ... good idea!

by wojtczyk

5/7/2026 at 1:55:04 PM

Thank you!

by wojtczyk

5/8/2026 at 12:58:39 AM

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