[Simh] BLISS and C

[Bob Eager]

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On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 17:48:22 -0500
Timothe Litt <litt at ieee.org> wrote:

> On 29-Jan-18 17:45, Dave Wade wrote:
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Simh [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Bob
> >> Eager
> >> Sent: 29 January 2018 22:08
> >> To: simh at trailing-edge.com
> >> Subject: Re: [Simh] BLISS and C
> >>
> >> On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 12:05:01 -0500
> >> Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> >>  
> >>> One can argue, why did Ken not just build something more like BCPL
> >>> instead of B?  I can not say, maybe the brevity of { } from PL/1
> >>> was more attractive than the Algol BEGIN/END style?  
> >> BCPL was, in any case, using $( $) and (later) { }. It never used
> >> BEGIN/END. 
> > The "B" compiler I used on the Honeywell L6000/L66 used { }.
> >  
> >> And the major drawback of BCPL (which I love) was that it was word
> >> oriented. Most machine architectures were not (OK, PDP-10...) One
> >> had to use contortions, and a special % operator, to access bytes
> >> efficiently. 
> > "B" is similar, characters were accessed by functions rather than a
> > special operator, but you can, I think use a combination of shifts
> > and logical operators.... ... those familiar with BCPL or C who
> > have not encountered B may find the manual here interesting...
> >
> > https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/bref.html
> >
> > it would be nice to find a working compiler for a word based
> > machine...  
> 
> I seem to remember that there was a BCPL for TOPS-10 in the DECUS
> library.

I have one here - the Pete Gardner compiler. I did my MSc dissertation
on a portable version, and indeed found one or two bugs in the TOPS-10
one!
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