From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 19536 invoked from network); 28 Nov 2021 23:14:59 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 28 Nov 2021 23:14:59 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 2FE259CF3C; Mon, 29 Nov 2021 09:14:55 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6ED9D94613; Mon, 29 Nov 2021 09:13:48 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 12F5194613; Mon, 29 Nov 2021 09:12:05 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mercury.lcs.mit.edu (mercury.lcs.mit.edu [18.26.0.122]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4AD6294586 for ; Mon, 29 Nov 2021 09:12:04 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11178) id 3BCB818C075; Sun, 28 Nov 2021 18:12:03 -0500 (EST) To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org Message-Id: <20211128231203.3BCB818C075@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2021 18:12:03 -0500 (EST) From: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Subject: Re: [TUHS] A New History of Modern Computing - my thoughts X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" > The ++ operator appears to have been. One would expect that most people on this list would have read "The Development of the C Language", by Dennis Ritchie, which makes perfectly clear (at 'More History') that the PDP-11 had nothing to do with it: Thompson went a step further by inventing the ++ and -- operators, which increment or decrement; their prefix or postfix position determines whether the alteration occurs before or after noting the value of the operand. They were not in the earliest versions of B, but appeared along the way. People often guess that they were created to use the auto-increment and auto-decrement address modes provided by the DEC PDP-11 on which C and Unix first became popular. This is historically impossible, since there was no PDP-11 when B was developed. https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html thereby alleviating the need for Ken to chime in (although they do allow a very efficient implementation of it). Too much to hope for, I guess. Noel