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* [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers?
@ 2024-03-07 23:14 Tom Lyon
  2024-03-07 23:24 ` [TUHS] " Warner Losh
                   ` (7 more replies)
  0 siblings, 8 replies; 60+ messages in thread
From: Tom Lyon @ 2024-03-07 23:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: TUHS main list

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For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C
compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell.
Especially for x86.  Anyone have tales?
Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX?

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 60+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: History of non-Bell C compilers?
@ 2024-03-11 17:12 Paul Ruizendaal
  2024-03-11 20:44 ` Marc Rochkind
  2024-03-12 15:42 ` Paul Ruizendaal
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 60+ messages in thread
From: Paul Ruizendaal @ 2024-03-11 17:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon <pugs78 at gmail.com> wrote:

> For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C
> compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell.
> Especially for x86.  Anyone have tales?
> Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX?

An unusual one would be the “revenue bomb” compiler that Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie did at Microsoft in 1981.

This compiler was intended to provided a uniform environment for the menagerie of 8 and 16-bit computers of the era. It compiled to a byte code which executed through a small interpreter. This by itself was hardly new of course, but it had some unique features. It generated code in overlays, so that it could run a code base larger than 64KB (but it defined only one data segment). It also defined a small set of “system” commands, that allowed for uniform I/O. I still have the implementation spec for that interpreter somewhere.

This compiler was used for the first versions of Multiplan and Word, and my understanding is that the byte code engine was later re-used in Visual Basic. I think the compiler also had a Xenix port, maybe it even was Xenix native (and at this time, Xenix would still essentially have been V7).

I am not sure to what extent this compiler was independent of the Bell compilers. It could well be that it was based on PCC, Microsoft was a Unix licensee after all and at the time busy doing ports. On the other hand, Charles Simonyi would certainly have been capable of creating his own from scratch. I do know that this compiler preceded Lattice C, the latter of which was distributed by Microsoft as Microsoft C 1.0.

Maybe others know more about this Simonyi/Brodie compiler?

Paul

Notes:
http://www.memecentral.com/mylife.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20080905231519/http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/appdev/story/0%2C10801%2C76413%2C00.html
http://seefigure1.com/images/xenix/xenix-timeline.jpg

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 60+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: History of non-Bell C compilers?
@ 2024-03-12 23:08 Steve Simon
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 60+ messages in thread
From: Steve Simon @ 2024-03-12 23:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs


The zorland c compiler from zortech, x86 pc compiler from a small uk company.

i used it to write my final year project at college in 1988. sadly i couldn’t use the interdata running v7 as i was doing image processing and needed to access an ISA framestore card.

i built a motion compensated video standards converter, and thanks to the 80287 i managed something like 6 hours per frame.

i think zortech claimed they wrote one of the first c++ compilers (rather than using c++).

 -Steve


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 60+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <aee297f1-2f6a-4620-87f7-f1672ae03b61@osta.com>]

end of thread, other threads:[~2024-03-15  3:34 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 60+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2024-03-07 23:14 [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? Tom Lyon
2024-03-07 23:24 ` [TUHS] " Warner Losh
2024-03-07 23:39   ` Dave Horsfall
2024-03-07 23:49     ` Larry McVoy
2024-03-07 23:56       ` Luther Johnson
2024-03-08 14:03         ` John Foust via TUHS
2024-03-07 23:59       ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2024-03-08  0:08         ` Rich Salz
2024-03-08  0:30           ` Warner Losh
2024-03-08  0:57             ` Rob Pike
2024-03-08  1:08               ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2024-03-08  1:10                 ` Rob Pike
2024-03-08  1:12                   ` Rob Pike
2024-03-08  1:22                     ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2024-03-08  9:33               ` arnold
2024-03-08  9:45                 ` Wesley Parish
2024-03-08 13:06                   ` Luther Johnson
2024-03-08 18:33               ` William H. Mitchell
2024-03-10  3:14                 ` Adam Thornton
2024-03-11 22:21       ` Phil Budne
2024-03-07 23:52   ` Warner Losh
2024-03-08  0:15     ` Charles H Sauer (he/him)
2024-03-08  0:30       ` Marc Rochkind
2024-03-08  0:54         ` Heinz Lycklama
2024-03-08  1:48           ` segaloco via TUHS
2024-03-08  2:12             ` Tom Lyon
2024-03-08  2:13     ` Lawrence Stewart
2024-03-08  3:15     ` Jonathan Gray
2024-03-07 23:24 ` Luther Johnson
2024-03-07 23:27   ` Luther Johnson
2024-03-07 23:44     ` Tom Lyon
2024-03-08  0:24       ` Marc Rochkind
2024-03-08  1:27         ` Jeffry R. Abramson
2024-03-10  2:13         ` Greg A. Woods
2024-03-08  2:26 ` Will Senn
2024-03-08  3:03   ` Peter Yardley
2024-03-08  3:28 ` George Michaelson
2024-03-08  3:58   ` Luther Johnson
2024-03-08  5:53 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2024-03-08 13:42 ` Henry Bent
2024-03-08 14:00   ` arnold
2024-03-08 14:16   ` Warner Losh
2024-03-08 15:44 ` Paul Winalski
2024-03-08 17:18   ` Adam Thornton
2024-03-10  2:31 ` Damian Wildie
2024-03-11 17:12 Paul Ruizendaal
2024-03-11 20:44 ` Marc Rochkind
2024-03-11 22:28   ` Peter Yardley
2024-03-12  0:30     ` ron minnich
2024-03-12 13:31       ` Larry Stewart
2024-03-12 16:41     ` Paul Winalski
2024-03-12 14:55   ` Henry Bent
2024-03-12 17:17     ` Marc Rochkind
2024-03-13 14:37       ` Clem Cole
2024-03-13 15:28         ` Marc Rochkind
2024-03-13 15:33           ` Warner Losh
2024-03-13 15:53           ` Clem Cole
2024-03-12 15:42 ` Paul Ruizendaal
2024-03-12 23:08 Steve Simon
     [not found] <aee297f1-2f6a-4620-87f7-f1672ae03b61@osta.com>
2024-03-15  3:34 ` Heinz Lycklama

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