From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 10:51:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [TUHS] FORTRAN Message-ID: <20180321145141.EF02718C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: "Steve Johnson" So, I have this persistent memory that I read, in some early Multics (possibly CTSS, but ISTR it was Multics) document, a footnote explaining the origin of the term 'daemon'. I went looking for it, but couldn't find it in a 'quick' scan. I did find this, though, which is of some interest: R. A. Freiburghouse, "The Multics PL/1 Compiler" (available online here: http://multicians.org/pl1-raf.html if anyone is interested). > There was a group that was pushing the adoption of PL/1, being used to > code Multics, but the compiler was late and not very good and it never > really caught on. So, in that I read: The entire compiler and the Multics operating system were written in EPL, a large subset of PL/1 ... The EPL compiler was built by a team headed by M. D. McIlroy and R. Morris ... Several members of the Multics PL/1 project modified the original EPL compiler to improve its object code performance, and utilized the knowledge acquired from this experience in the design of the Multics PL/1 compiler. The EPL compiler was written when the _original_ PL/1 compiler (supposedly being produced by a consulting company, Digitek) blew up. More detail is available here: http://multicians.org/pl1.html I assume it's the Digitek compiler you were thinking of above? Noel