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To: Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com>
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Comments: In-reply-to Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com>
 message dated "Sun, 14 Feb 2021 13:08:48 -0600."
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2021 22:31:23 -0800
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From: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Fwd: [multicians] History of C (with Multics reference)
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> Remember the story that Ken Thompson had written a language called "Bon"
> which was one of the forerunners of "B" which then led to "new B" and then
> to "C"?
> 
> I just found Ken Thompson's "Bon Users Manual" dated Feb 1, 1969, as told
> to M. D. McIlroy and R. Morris
> in Jerry Saltzer's files online at MIT.
> http://people.csail.mit.edu/saltzer/Multics/MHP-Saltzer-060508/filedrawers/180.btl-misc/Scan%204.PDF

There was clearly a lot of cross-fertilization between early APL systems
and Bon.  (APL was the first computer language I dug deeply into.)  Some
of the common elements are the interactive execution environment,
untyped variables, and automatic application of builtin functions (like
+) across all elements of arrays.

	John