Bibliography for name C
utzoo!utcsrgv!utcsstat!ian
utzoo!utcsrgv!utcsstat!ian
Thu Dec 30 15:35:33 AEST 1982
Steve Serocki asked how "c" came to be called "c". Dave Levenson's
article which mentioned BCPL was on the right track. C derives from B,
and was briefly called `NB'. The BSTJ paper on `The C Programming
Language' has a section entitled `The Linguistic History of C' which
states:
`The C language in use today is the product of several years of
evolution. Many of its most important ideas stem from the
considerably older, but still quite vital, language BCPL
developed by Martin Richards. The influence of BCPL on C
proceeded indirectly through the language B, which was written
by Ken Thompson in 1970 for the first UNIX system on the
PDP-11'
(i.e., the PDP-7 UNIX didn't have C, it used Thompson's B language).
This appears on page 1992 of the article cited below. (I've omitted
footnote references from the article; you should read the original for
more info).
%A Dennis M. Ritchie
%A S. C. Johnson
%A M. E. Lesk
%A B. W. Kernighan
%T The C Programming Language
%J The Bell System Technical Journal
%V 57
%N 6
%D July-August 1978
Hope this helps,
Ian Darwin, Toronto
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