[TUHS] Lost Origins of the Plan 9 C Compiler

[TUHS] Lost Origins of the Plan 9 C Compiler

[Aram Hăvărneanu]

The Plan 9 C compiler must predate Plan 9 and therefore it must
have been created on Research Unix.

The v10 manual doesn't mention them, fair enough, they document
Unix and not Plan 9, but they do say that rc(1) is the Plan 9
shell...

Research Unix of the time ran on VAX. A natural question arises,
was VAX the original target of the Plan 9 compilers? Where is it?
Why isn't it mentioned anywhere?

If VAX was never a target, then what was the original purpose of
these compilers and how were they tested on a target that Research
Unix never ran on?

One might think they might have been used for the Jerq/Blit/DMD-5620,
but no, the Unix manual documents a different compiler used for
these (which is distinct from the main C compiler).

The Plan 9 compilers seems to have appeared out of thin air, but
this certainly can't be the case.

--
Aram Hăvărneanu

[TUHS] Re: Lost Origins of the Plan 9 C Compiler

[Tom Ivar Helbekkmo via TUHS]

Aram Hăvărneanu <aram.h@mgk.ro> writes:

> The Plan 9 compilers seems to have appeared out of thin air, but
> this certainly can't be the case.

I think this may be what you are looking for:
http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/new_c_compilers/

-tih
-- 
Most people who graduate with CS degrees don't understand the significance
of Lisp.  Lisp is the most important idea in computer science.  --Alan Kay

[TUHS] Re: Lost Origins of the Plan 9 C Compiler

[Aram Hăvărneanu]

> I think this may be what you are looking for:
> http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/new_c_compilers/

Since I have worked on a derivative of the Plan 9 C compiler, I
assure you I have read all the available papers and documentation
about it and they answer none of the questions raised above.

-- 
Aram Hăvărneanu

[TUHS] Re: Lost Origins of the Plan 9 C Compiler

[Rob Pike]

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You shouldn't dismiss so lightly. The cited document answers the question
of the first target, which was the National 32000. It ran on a Sequent
multiprocessor, a machine we were thinking about using for other work.

So no, it was not created on Research Unix, or at least not for it. We
wanted a faster compiler for a number of reasons, and Ken had ideas about
that. Because of its architecture, it was easy to port to other RISC
architectures, such as the MIPS and SPARC, although both those machines had
wrinkles that needed ironing out.

-rob


On Fri, Jan 5, 2024 at 10:05 PM Aram Hăvărneanu <aram.h@mgk.ro> wrote:

> > I think this may be what you are looking for:
> > http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/new_c_compilers/
>
> Since I have worked on a derivative of the Plan 9 C compiler, I
> assure you I have read all the available papers and documentation
> about it and they answer none of the questions raised above.
>
> --
> Aram Hăvărneanu
>

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[TUHS] Re: Lost Origins of the Plan 9 C Compiler

[Michaelian Ennis]

There is additional context about what was happening at the time in
Rob's talk at GopherCon 2016: Rob Pike - The Design of the Go
Assembler .

Ian


On Fri, Jan 5, 2024 at 3:34 AM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You shouldn't dismiss so lightly. The cited document answers the question of the first target, which was the National 32000. It ran on a Sequent multiprocessor, a machine we were thinking about using for other work.
>
> So no, it was not created on Research Unix, or at least not for it. We wanted a faster compiler for a number of reasons, and Ken had ideas about that. Because of its architecture, it was easy to port to other RISC architectures, such as the MIPS and SPARC, although both those machines had wrinkles that needed ironing out.
>
> -rob
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 5, 2024 at 10:05 PM Aram Hăvărneanu <aram.h@mgk.ro> wrote:
>>
>> > I think this may be what you are looking for:
>> > http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/new_c_compilers/
>>
>> Since I have worked on a derivative of the Plan 9 C compiler, I
>> assure you I have read all the available papers and documentation
>> about it and they answer none of the questions raised above.
>>
>> --
>> Aram Hăvărneanu