This advertisement appeared in PC Magazine during 1986-1988.

Interactive-C

Earlier C interpreters were miraculous compromises. Interactive-C shows how far C interpreters have come. More than an interpreter, Interactive-C is a fully-integrated development environment: a complete K&R intepreter bound tightly to its own editor and debugger.

Slice through programming projects like a hot knife through butter. Extensive error-checking insures immediate detection of program misbehavior. State of the art debugging tools include breakpoints, watchvalues, several stepping options and interactive viewing and modification of variables. An Interactive-C exclusive lets you interrupt to edit and "continue" from where you left off. Eliminates plodding replays of already debugged code -- the ball and chain of other interpreters.

Operate Interactive-C using adjustable edit, command, and status windows. Toggle a second screen showing only your program's output -- never any crowded intermixing. Or, boost productivity with twin CRTs. Load object code of functions you have already compiled. Or of commercial Libraries. Interactive-C has immediate mode, syntax checking both as you type and run, and cursor positioning precisely pointing at an error, not possible with incremental or pseudo-compilers which leave source code behind.

100% compiler compatible -- right down to header files and library calls. Port programs between Interactive-C and your compiler with no modifications whatever -- not even tricky areas of dynamic memory allocation and I/O.

List: $249

The book Debugging C, by Robert Ward (1986) has this to say about Interactive-C.

Readers who are interested in a command-based design might investigate Interactive-C, from IMPACC Associates, Inc. Interactive-C controls all of its debugging aids directly from the user interface. All operations are conducted directly from a single multiwindow screen.

Interactive-C emphasizes its dynamic but sometimes risky nature by allowing the programmer to "patch" code and data values, and to continue execution following any type of interruption. Ironically, immediate-mode execution (one of the most powerful dynamic features of an interpreter) is severely limited in Interactive-C. Only externally compiled functions can be executed in immediate mode.