[Simh] BLISS and C

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2018-01-29 23:48, Timothe Litt 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 a BCPL compiler for RSX, which also came from DECUS. Now, the 
PDP-11 is probably not a word based machine in the sense Dave meant.
However, I also think that Dave was asking for a B compiler, and not a 
BCPL compiler...

   Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
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