Extremely CISC instructions- C compilers.

[Toby Thain]

On 2021-08-25 3:23 p.m., Van Snyder via cctalk wrote:
> On Wed, 2021-08-25 at 14:58 -0400, Todd Goodman via cctalk wrote:
>> P.110 of https://walden-family.com/bbn/bbn-print2.pdf has some slight
>> information.
>>
>> It was advertised by Bolt, Beranek and Newman as the first computer
>> to 
>> be designed around the C language.
> 
> This says the computer was introduced "a year later" (i.e., a year
> after March 1980).
> 
> AT&T had 3B20 computers in service in the 1970's.
> 
> Were they "designed around the C language" or was the C language shoe-
> horned into them?

During the 1980s many processors used this marketing claim, including
Fairchild Clipper. Some may have even tried.

> 
> The C language appears to have been designed as a high-level assembler
> for machines like the PDP-11, which first appeared ca 1970. At least
> that's what the Wikipedioa article about the B language appears to say.
>