AbstractThere can be a considerable difference between a portable compiler and a usable one which is a high level language implementation with a fair chance of acceptance by the general public in competition with other—vendor supported—systems. The experiences gained in pushing a portable PASCAL compiler across such an acceptance barrier are discussed in detail. Comments on some shortcomings of the PASCAL definition and suggested remedies are included.As a result, it seems feasible to reduce drastically the effort required for a bootstrap by supplementing a bare bone portable compiler with features hitherto considered as luxuries in this context. Only language Implementations which are portable in this broader sense might spread sufficiently easily to survive the competition, especially if the impact of increasingly available access to computer networks is conside