23 Jun
2004
23 Jun
'04
2:13 p.m.
From: "der Mouse"
<mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca>
Hi
There was a 'B' as well. I don't recall hearing about a 'A'.
Dwight
Q: Current C compilers are written in C.
What was the FIRST C compiler written in?
Was there a well-defined "first C compiler"? I'm not sure there was.
The language we know today as C has evolved over many years, and it's
hard to find an obvious place to draw a "before this was not C" line. 
23 Jun
23 Jun
2:40 p.m.
On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 16:13:03 -0700 (PDT)
"Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey(a)amd.com> wrote:
I thought the puzzle was whether C's successor would
be *D* or *P*...
--don
From: "der Mouse"
<mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca>
sure there
was.
Q: Current C compilers are written in C.
What was the FIRST C compiler written in?
Was there a well-defined "first C compiler"? I'm not The language we know today as C has evolved over
many
years, and it's
hard to find an obvious place to draw a
"before this was
not C" line.
There was a 'B' as well. I don't recall hearing about a
'A'. 
2:16 p.m.
In message <006a01c4597c$9b687ef0$5b01a8c0@athlon>, "Antonio Carlini"
writes:
IIRC Dennis Ritchie's HOPL II paper on C indicates that the D vs.
P question was left intentionally ambiguous.
Ok, I just looked it up:
"I decided to follow the single-letter style and called it C, leaving
open the question whether the name represented a progression through
the alphabet or through the letters in BCPL."
Of course, it's all academic. It's hard to imagine that any
language could have a meaningful claim to the title of "successor
of C." Everything else is "another language" (which is not to
say that no language could ever be better for some applications).
Brian L. Stuart
I thought the
puzzle was whether C's successor would
be *D* or *P*...
It will be D (or D++, I forget the exact name). 
26 Jun
26 Jun
1:26 p.m.
It will be D
(or D++, I forget the exact name).
IIRC Dennis Ritchie's HOPL II paper on C indicates that the D vs.
P question was left intentionally ambiguous.
Ok, I just looked it up:
"I decided to follow the single-letter style and called it C, leaving
open the question whether the name represented a progression through
the alphabet or through the letters in BCPL." 
23 Jun
23 Jun
3:17 p.m.
New subject: Origins of C (was: "Nobody programs in machine language" (was: Modern
>> Q: Current C compilers are written in C.
>> What was the FIRST C compiler written in?
>From: "der Mouse"
<mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca>
>Was there a well-defined "first C compiler"? I'm not sure there was.
>The language we know today as C has evolved over many years, and it's
>hard to find an obvious place to draw a "before this was not C" line.
Although I would be more inclined to agree with you on some other
languages that have evolved, C was written and documented very
deliberately.
It was written by Titchie and Thompson, and documented by Kernighan and
Ritchie. (K&R). Although there have been many later versions that have
strayed, and the ANSI standard C has significant differences, K&R C
has a known history.
On Wed, 23 Jun 2004, Dwight K. Elvey wrote:
Hi
There was a 'B' as well. I don't recall hearing about a 'A'.
Dwight
There was a predecessor to C, that was mostly theoretical,
and rarely implemented named BCPL. The confusion over whether
the sequence was A B C D v B C P L led to:
> I thought the puzzle was whether C's
successor would
> be *D* or *P*...
On Thu, 24 Jun 2004, Antonio Carlini wrote:
It will be D (or D++, I forget the exact name).
I doubt it.
But C++ claims to be a successor to C.
C# claims to be a successor to C++, although
I don't know whether anybody outside of MICROS~1
takes that seriously.
(Wasn't it Algol that was praised as being a
considerable improvement over its successors ?)
9:24 p.m.
New subject: Origins of C (was: "Nobody programs in machine language" (was:Modern
There was a
'B' as well. I don't recall hearing about a 'A'.
Dwight
There was a predecessor to C, that was mostly theoretical,
and rarely implemented named BCPL. (Fred) From this side of the Atlantic things look slightly
different - as usual :-)
"in the beginning" there was CPL
Designed as an "all purpose" programming language (in the same way as
PL/I).
As far as I can tell only one implementation (and that incomplete?)
existed on the Atlas. It was "a byte too far" in terms of the capabilities
of the time. Could well be described as "mostly theoretical and rarely
implemented".
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.
B was a reworking of BCPL that was more in the form of a PL/I subset.
As far as I am aware it was only implemented on the GE/Honeywell 36-bit
machines but was a popular implementation language for those. We used it on
our GCOS III system - I think that we only wrote 3 or 4 modules in GMAP
(thank heavens!)
C was essentially a reworking of B to be suitable for character-addressed
machines.
I had assumed that the first C compiler had been written in B - I am pleased
to be corrected. Was the assembler version written directly as such or as
hand-translated pseudo-code?
Andy
24 Jun
24 Jun
4:40 a.m.
New subject: Origins of C (was: "Nobody programs in machine language" (was:Modern
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"
5:21 a.m.
New subject: Origins of C (was: "Nobody programs in machine language" (was:Modern
>>>> "Huw" == Huw Davies
<huw.davies(a)kerberos.davies.net.au> writes:
Huw> .... I did all (well
Huw> really most) of my BCPL programming on a DECsystem-10 where
Huw> bytes had a completely different interpretation to the commonly
Huw> accepted IBMism.
Then again, it's possible to implement C on a PDP10 -- there's a GCC
port for it, even...
paul
4:37 a.m.
New subject: Origins of C (was: "Nobody programs in machine language" (was: Modern
On 24 Jun 2004, at 10:17, Fred Cisin wrote:
There was a predecessor to C, that was mostly theoretical,
and rarely implemented named BCPL. The confusion over whether
the sequence was A B C D v B C P L led to:
Well BCPL was so theoretical that it was used to implement Tripos and
some
multitasking operating system for the Amiga (which was the major reason
that
I purchased my A2000 in preference to a Mac).
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"
5:11 a.m.
New subject: Origins of C (was: "Nobody programs in machine language" (was: Modern
>>>> "Fred" == Fred Cisin
<cisin(a)xenosoft.com> writes:
Fred> But C++ claims to be a successor to C. C# claims to be a
Fred> successor to C++, although I don't know whether anybody outside
Fred> of MICROS~1 takes that seriously.
And C++ is sufficiently complex that its relation to C is rather
muddled...
> (Wasn't it Algol that was praised as being a
considerable
> improvement over its successors ?)
I can believe that. Then again, both Pascal and Modula-2 are
admirable languages. And personally I rather liked Algol-68 (from
which C++ borrowed a lot) -- even though it got me yelled at by
Dijkstra.
paul
4:34 a.m.
On 24 Jun 2004, at 09:13, Dwight K. Elvey wrote:
Of course not. BCPL lead to B which lead to C. And in some sense CPL
lead to BCPL.
Some (OK. me :-) would argue that moving from left to right might not
have been an
improvement.
I'm far enough South to appreciate the flames that this will ignite,
although Ethan would
appreciate the heat even more ....
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"
From: "der Mouse"
<mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca>
Hi
There was a 'B' as well. I don't recall hearing about a 'A'. Q: Current C compilers are written in C.
What was the FIRST C compiler written in?
Was there a well-defined "first C compiler"? I'm not sure there was.
The language we know today as C has evolved over many years, and it's
hard to find an obvious place to draw a "before this was not C" line.
7365
days inactive
7368
days old
11 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
a.carlini＠ntlworld.com -
andyh＠andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk -
arcarlini＠iee.org -
auryn＠gci-net.com -
blstuart＠bellsouth.net -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dwight.elvey＠amd.com -
huw.davies＠kerberos.davies.net.au -
pkoning＠equallogic.com