6 Mar
2025
6 Mar
'25
7:47 p.m.
On Thu, Mar 6, 2025 at 1:23 AM Lars Brinkhoff <lars(a)nocrew.org> wrote:
Dan Cross writes:
Interesting. I wonder if this is the basis for Dennis mentioning the
GE-635 port in the C history paper?
- Dan C.
John Levine wrote:
Whilst I agree the claim is startling, there is a connection between
early C and the GE 635. The little known Snyder C compiler has back
ends for the PDP-10, PDP-11, and Honeywell 6000 series (nee GE 635).
https://github.com/PDP-10/Snyder-C-compiler/blob/master/MAC-TR-149.pdf
I believe this compiler was started when Snyder visited Bell Labs in
1973, and it comes with a very archaic version of Yacc. I believe the earliest versions of C were on a GE
635, a word addressed
machine comparable to a PDP-10. But it moved to a PDP-11 soon enough
This is a
startling claim that I have never heard before. [...] C did
not appear until they were solidly on the PDP-11, and was developed on
that machine. The earliest connections to other machines were Dennis
Ritchie constructing a cross-compiler for B that ran on the PDP-7