

Primeval C: two very early compilers - acqq
http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/primevalC.html

======
cpr
Wow, brings back old, old memories of seeing the C/Unix source listings lying
on my office mate's desk (Geoff Steckel) at the old Harvard CRCT (graduate
Center for Research in Computing Technology). I'm pretty sure Harvard had the
first sources released outside of Bell Labs, in '73 or '74.

Since some of the original PDP-11 line printers (LP11's) didn't have lower
case, upper case was indicated by struck-through upper case and lower case was
plain upper.

I remember, after being steeped in Lisp-family languages (ECL), but also
Bliss-11 (from CMU), my curiousity at seeing a "high-level" language that was
so close to the machine in a different way than Bliss (which had a lot to
recommend it) but also with a completely different approach to data
structures. (C grew out of BCPL, while Bliss used what were effectively
compile-time procedures to let you arbitrarily define your structure access.)

~~~
Hoff
For some Bliss documentation:

<http://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v80/bliss-intro/>

<http://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v80/bliss-article/>

[http://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v80/bliss-article-
ps...](http://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v80/bliss-article-ps/)

Bliss32 and Bliss64 compilers for VAX/VMS, Alpha, and Itanium:

<http://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v80/bliss/>

That includes (free) licenses. If you want to use these compilers to
experiment, you can get a VAX emulator here <http://simh.trailing-edge.com/>
(boots and runs on Linux, Mac, Windows) and a VMS license and media are
available for the cost of a CD (US$30).

------
acqq
See also:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2505688>

Especially:

Book: Lion's Commentary on the Sixth Ed Unix

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2506176>

~~~
acqq
And also:

The Development of the C Language

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2258287>

