Runtime error 200 is the standard error message by Borland

Borland

Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...

's Pascal compilers, standing for Division by zero. Many older computer program

Computer program

A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...

s for the MS-DOS

MS-DOS

MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...

 operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 fail immediately on loading with this error message. In many cases, they were compiled with an older version of the Borland or Turbo Pascal

Turbo Pascal

Turbo Pascal is a software development system that includes a compiler and an integrated development environment for the Pascal programming language running on CP/M, CP/M-86, and DOS, developed by Borland under Philippe Kahn's leadership...

 compiler

Compiler

A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...

, which often generated programs that failed if executed on computers with processors

Central processing unit

The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

 faster than about 200 MHz.

Reason

Borland and Turbo Pascal's standard libraries included a procedure called delay(n) (in unit CRT) that halts the execution of the program for a given number of milliseconds. To be able to use this function, every program that includes CRT performs initialization on startup. The problem lies in the internal workings of the initialization routine: the code measures the running time of a busy wait loop and calculates how many times it must be called to have the correct amount of delay. The problem arises when the computer is so fast that the loop takes 0 ticks and these calculations result in an division by zero

Division by zero

In mathematics, division by zero is division where the divisor is zero. Such a division can be formally expressed as a / 0 where a is the dividend . Whether this expression can be assigned a well-defined value depends upon the mathematical setting...

, which triggers the error.

Solutions

Such programs can be patched to operate correctly, or a Terminate and stay resident

Terminate and Stay Resident

Terminate and Stay Resident is a computer system call in DOS computer operating systems that returns control to the system as if the program has quit, but keeps the program in memory...

 (TSR) program can be loaded before running the program in question. See the article on Turbo Pascal

Turbo Pascal

Turbo Pascal is a software development system that includes a compiler and an integrated development environment for the Pascal programming language running on CP/M, CP/M-86, and DOS, developed by Borland under Philippe Kahn's leadership...

and http://library.thinkquest.org/27297/.

Various solutions are also discussed in an article by J. R. Stockton.

External Link- Runtime error 200