Delphi 1 was released in 1995 for the 16-bit Windows 3.1 and was an early example of what came to be known as Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools. Delphi 1 was the successor of Turbo Pascal and Borland Pascal, very fast 16-bit native code compilers with its own sophisticated integrated development environment (IDE) and graphical user interface toolkit for DOS (Borland Pascal added Windows IDE and Windows code generation as well). Like Turbo Pascal, Delphi code was written in a dialect of Pascal programming language which is known as Object Pascal.
Borland Delphi 2
Delphi 2, released in 1996, supported 32-bit Windows environments. It included Delphi 1 bundled together for creation of 16-bit Windows 3.1 applications.
Borland Delphi 3
Delphi 3, released in 1997, was the classic Delphi. It supported 32-bit Windows environments. It also included Delphi 1 bundled together for creation of 16-bit Windows 3.1 applications.
Borland Delphi 4
Borland Delphi 4 was released in 1998.
Borland Delphi 5
Borland Delphi 5 was released in 1999.
Kylix
In 2001 a Linux version of Delphi, named Kylix, was released. The IDE was dependent on the Wine libraries rather than Linux's native system libraries (glibc) in order to get a product out quickly and relatively cheaply. The expense of developing a native glibc version of Kylix, combined with the lack of Linux adoption among programmers at the time, caused sales to go soft, and Kylix was quietly abandoned after version 3. This was the first attempt to add Linux support in the Delphi product family.
Kylix was based on the new CLX cross-platform framework, instead of VCL as Delphi.
Borland Delphi 6
Attempts to support both Linux and Windows for cross-platform development were made, and a cross-platform alternative to the VCL known as CLX shipped in 2002 with the release of Delphi 6. This was the second attempt to add Linux support to the Delphi product family (see Kylix above).
Delphi 6 included the same CLX version (CLX 1) as the first version of Kylix mentioned above. Since CLX was created before Delphi 6, its feature set was based on VCL 5; that created some disadvantage for CLX which lacked some features compared to VCL 6 shipped with Delphi 6.
Borland Delphi 7
Delphi 7, released in August 2002, became the standard version used by more Delphi developers than any other single version. It is one of the most successful IDEs created by Borland because of its stability, speed and low hardware requirements and remains actively used to this date (2009). Delphi 7 added support for Windows XP Themes, and added more support for building Web applications. It was also the last version of Delphi which can be used without Activation.
Borland Delphi 8
Delphi 8, released December 2003, was a .NET-only release that allowed developers to compile Delphi Object Pascal code into .NET CIL. The IDE was rewritten to accommodate for .NET development. The IDE changed to a docked interface similar to Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET. Delphi 8 was highly criticized for its low quality and the fact that is was no longer possible to create native applications (*.exe). The inability to generate native applications is only applicable to this release, as the capability was added back in to the next release (Delphi 2005).
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 includes design-time manipulation of live data from a database. It also includes an improved IDE and added a for ... in statement (like C#'s foreach) to the language. However, it was criticized by some for its bugs; both Delphi 8 and Delphi 2005 had stability problems when shipped, which were only partially resolved in service packs. The ability to compile native windows applications (*.exe) was added back into Delphi 2005 after being removed in Delphi 8.
Borland Delphi 2006
In late 2005 Delphi 2006 (Delphi 10, Borland Developer Studio 4.0) was released and combined development of C# and Delphi.NET, Delphi Win32 and C++ (Preview when it was shipped but got stable in Service Pack 1) into a single IDE. It was much more stable than Delphi 8 or Delphi 2005 when shipped, and improved even more with the release of service packs and several hotfixes. CLX support was dropped for new applications from this release onwards.
On February 8, 2006 Borland announced that it was looking for a buyer for its IDE and database line of products, which include Delphi, to concentrate on its ALM line.
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 versions of Borland Developer Studio, bringing back the popular Turbo name. The Turbo product set includes Turbo Delphi for Win32, Turbo Delphi for .NET, Turbo C++, and Turbo C#. Each version is available in two editions: Explorer—a free downloadable version—and Professional—a lower-priced (US$899 for new user, US$399 for update) version which opens access to thousands of third-party components. Unlike earlier Personal editions of Delphi, new Explorer editions can be used for commercial development.
On November 14, 2006 Borland announced that rather than selling the development tools group it would spin it off into an independent subsidiary company named CodeGear.
Codegear Delphi 2007
Photo of Delphi 2007 box as released by CodeGear in spring 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 which is based on .NET Framework 2.0 was released as part of the CodeGear RAD Studio 2007 product. New features included support for MS Build and enhancements to the Visual Component Library for Windows Vista, but the C#Builder feature was dropped in this release as sales where not as high as expected due to Visual Studio also offering C#. The Windows Form designer for Delphi .NET was also dropped in D2007 because it is based upon part of the .NET framework API which had been changed so drastically by Microsoft in .NET 2.0 that updating the IDE would have been a major undertaking. Later on Delphi.NET was replaced by Delphi Prism, a combination of RemObjects mostly Delphi compatible .NET compiler, Microsofts Visual Studio Shell (a version without C# and VB support) and some Embarcadero technologies like dbExpress. Prism is in so far cross platform capable as it supports the Mono .NET libraries. Delphi 2007 also introduced DBX4 as the next version of dbExpress. For the first time Delphi could be downloaded from the Internet and activated with a license key, a capability powered by the new InstallAware installation technology (itself authored in Delphi, and now shipping in a free, limited edition inside the box with Delphi). Internationalized versions of Delphi 2007 shipped simultaneously in English, French, German and Japanese. RAD Studio 2007 (code named Highlander), which includes .NET and C++Builder development, was released on September 5, 2007.
Borland sold CodeGear to Embarcadero Technologies in 2008. Embarcadero is retaining the CodeGear division created by Borland to identify its tool and database offerings, and Embarcadero has decided to identify its own database tools under the DatabaseGear moniker.
Embarcadero Delphi 2009
Delphi 2009 (Delphi 12, code named Tiburón), added many new features such as completely reworking the VCL and RTL for full Unicode support, and added generics and anonymous methods for Win32 native development. Support for .NET development was dropped from the Delphi IDE. A new product, Delphi Prism, was offered for .NET development in its place. Delphi Prism is a Visual Studio language plug-in, and does not include a RTL or VCL for porting code.
Embarcadero Delphi 2010
Delphi 2010 (aka Delphi 14, code named Weaver; number 13 was skipped), was released on August 25, 2009 and is the second Unicode release of Delphi. It includes a new compiler RTTI system, support for Windows 7 direct 2D, touch screen and gestures, a source code formatter, debugger visualizers and the option to also have the old style component palette in the IDE. The new RTTI system makes larger executables than previous versions.
Embarcadero Delphi XE
The latest version of Delphi, Delphi XE (aka Delphi 2011, code named Fulcrum), was released on August 30, 2010.
Source : Wikipedia
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