Just in: the benefits of compiling into platform-independent byte code

After the existence of Pascal became known (in 1974), several people asked us for assistance in implementing Pascal on various other machines [...] Thereupon we decided to provide a compiler version that would generate code for a machine of our own design. This code later became known as P-code. [...] Had we possessed the wisdom to foresee the dimension of this movement, we would have put more effort and care into designing and documenting P-code.

-- Niklaus Wirth, 1985