"Nobody programs in machine language" (was: Modern

From: Al Kossow <aek_at_spies.com>
Date: Wed Jun 23 16:54:04 2004

Q: Current C compilers are written in C.
What was the FIRST C compiler written in?

--
PDP-11 assembly language. You can look at the sources in the early
Unix archives, or....
--
From: Dennis Ritchie <dmr_at_bell-labs.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.std.c,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: A primeval C compiler
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 06:43:22 +0100
Organization: Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies
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I finally prepared another fossil for museum exhibition: from DECtapes
written
in 1972-73, there are exhumed C compilers (including source) to show
what
the very early stages of the language were like.  This was a highly
transitional stage; for example, the earlier one anticipates a "long"
type, but doesn't have struct; the 6-months-later compiler implements
struct, but reuses long's slot in the type table.
 http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/~dmr/primevalC.html
                Dennis

Received on Wed Jun 23 2004 - 16:54:04 BST