24 Jun
2004
24 Jun
'04
1:40 a.m.
On 24 Jun 2004, at 16:24, Andy Holt wrote:
A subset of this (BCPL) was designed and used as an
implementation
language
for CPL.
It became a (reasonably) widely implemented and used language on
British
computers of the era (because it was easy to port). So not "rarely
implemented". Its real failing was an assumption of word (rather than
character) addressing.
At the time BCPL was implemented this wasn't such a bad assumption. I'm
fairly
sure that most computers at the time in the UK were word rather than
byte
addressed. I did all (well really most) of my BCPL programming on a
DECsystem-10 where bytes had a completely different interpretation
to the commonly accepted IBMism.
Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)kerberos.davies.net.au
Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the
Australia | air, the sky would be painted green"