7 Jun
2023
7 Jun
'23
9:05 p.m.
Sebastien,
I'm not aware of any old UNIX B code beyond the examples from the
documentation and one or two short programs for the PDP-7 (this is older
B).
As Lars already mentioned, some people have written their own B
compilers, even in B.
My compiler (https://github.com/aap/b) generates the same threaded
code that ran on the PDP-11 and I implemented it on a few platforms,
(pdp-11, amd64, mips32, riscv64), notably it runs on UNIX v6.
Robert Swierczek has written a B compiler that is compatible with the
PDP-7 runtime:
https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/other/b.b
With B you pretty much have to write your own code unfortunately. Would
be great if some bigger programs (like the compiler and yacc) were found.
best,
Angelo
On 07/06/23, Sebastien F4GRX wrote:
Hello everyone,
this is my first post on this list.
After looking at the archives for this mailing list, I have seen that
the B language has been discussed several times already.
After viewing Ken Thompson's interview by Brian Kernighan at VCF East
2019, I became interested in the B language, as it seemed full-featured
for system programming, close to C, and simple enough to write a parser
for it without a code generation tool.
So for fun and self-education, I am now writing a (or yet another) B
compiler, in C, after reading Jack Crenshaw's "Let's build a
compiler"
documentation ( https://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/ )
Here it is: https://git.sr.ht/~f4grx/bpars
It is now starting to generate code for the 68hc11 8-bit platform. It
can also generate C code.
I have written some test programs, found some B examples, but I thought
it would be great to use my compiler with actual B software.
Of course, B was a "transition" language, that did not have a continued
use as soon as it evolved into C. so if any software remains, it will be
quite hard to find.
And here is my question, is any of you aware of original B source code
archives? or are in touch with people that would know?
In particular, I read on this document written by Dennis Ritchie:
https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html
After the TMG version of B was working, Thompson
rewrote B in itself
(a bootstrapping step).
I have also read that the YACC tool was initially written in B.
There might be other historical B sources that I am not aware of.
Do you know if any of this code has survived to this day? Where could I
find more information about this?
Thank you very much,
Sebastien Lorquet (F4GRX)