[TUHS] Re: History of non-Bell C compilers?

[Jonathan Gray <jsg@jsg.id.au>]

On Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 04:52:26PM -0700, Warner Losh wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 4:24 PM Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon <pugs78@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?
> >>
> >
> > MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the Venix x86 port.
> > They supported the popular micros of the time. Various versions of them
> > survive to the present day.
> >
> 
> It's at bitsavers:
> 
> https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/pc-ip/8086_C_19850820.tar
> and
> https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/trix/MIT_Compiler_Tape/

and tuhs Applications/Portable_CC/

> 
> are pointers to compilers from the early 80s. Obviously not ANSI-C
> compilers :)
> 
> Warner

The compilers used for MIT Nu/TRIX were derived from PCC.

SUMacC, the Stanford UNIX Macintosh C development environment
reused that work, and one release announcement has:

"ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The 68000 C compiler used by SUMacC is the Bell Labs (Johnson) portable
C compiler, ported by Chris Terman of MIT and used in the MIT NU
project and the Stanford SUN system. The assembler is by Mike Patrick,
also of MIT. This same compiler / assembler / loader is used in many
of the 68K UNIX boxes currently on the market. Many modifications and
bug fixes have been applied by folks at Stanford, MIT, and Lucasfilm:
Jeff Mogul, Bill Nowicki, John Seamons, Vaughan Pratt, Eric Ostrom, and
a cast of thousands.

Dave Johnson of Brown Univ. contributed the excellent macget/macput
programs that make downloading painless. Among the many people
contributing improvements, new example programs, and bug fixes are:
Mike Schuster of CALTECH, Dan Winkler and Steve Engle of Harvard, Bill
Schilit at Columbia, Joe Pallas and Steve Gross at Stanford, John
Seamons at Lucasfilm, John Peterson at Utah, Ben Hyde of Intermetrics,
Bruce Horn of Apple/Adobe, Van Jacobson at LBL, and many others. Thank
you all!"

Bill Croft in fa.info-mac 20 Nov 1984
https://groups.google.com/g/fa.info-mac/c/-TS9aotPoEA/m/h5U9LQ9yre4J