Ken,

Was smalgol also known as BC Algol, as described here:

https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/algol60impl/#BC_ALGOL

On Mar 9, 2025, at 12:06 PM, Ken Thompson <kenbob@gmail.com>
 wrote:

how about smalgol?

it was an algol-like language with just int and float types.
i dont know its history, but it came out of berkeley near
when Niklaus Wirth was there. it compiled for the ibm 7094
in normal batch processing fashion. i converted it to a jit
into memory in order to skip the loading phase. i used
it for a lot of my fun-work. (1965-66)

mainframe time, then, was a big factor in the computing process.
smalgol could compile, load, and run in about 1 cpu-second.

smalgol was all ibm-cards, but it was on my mind through
the bcpl to b to nb phases. i would use the modern word
"influencer.”


Paul McJones