At least one simplified view of the death of Pascal is the rise and fall of Borland. Borland's compilers were the fastest. Borland invested more in FFI work and C-interop than competitors. Eventually Pascal was Borland (and vice versa), because no commercial entity (in the 90s-ish) was using a non-Borland Pascal compiler. Borland making bad business decisions and Microsoft making good business decisions in poaching key Borland staff at the right moments, seems like some obvious death nails in Pascal's coffin. (Obviously that's still a very simplified narrative to history, but it is an easy and common one.)