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* [TUHS] where did "main" come from?
@ 2020-05-22 18:43 Lawrence Stewart
  2020-05-22 20:01 ` Michael Kjörling
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 7+ messages in thread
From: Lawrence Stewart @ 2020-05-22 18:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

C main programs define “main”.
This also seems to be true of B main programs, according to the Johnson/Kernighan manual
The 1967 Martin Richards BCPL manual doesn’t explain how programs get started
The 1974 update from Martin Richards says there should be an OS addendum that explains this.
The 1974 University of Essex BCPL manual says to use START
The 1979 Parc Alto BCPL manual uses Main and I think that must be unchanged from 1972.
The AMSTRAD BCPL guide from 1986 uses start()


So who started “main” and when?  I can’t find an online copy of the Bell Laboratories BCPL manual (Canaday/Thompson) from 1969 or anything about how to use BCPL on Multics or CTSS.

-L


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread

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Thread overview: 7+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2020-05-22 18:43 [TUHS] where did "main" come from? Lawrence Stewart
2020-05-22 20:01 ` Michael Kjörling
2020-05-22 21:52 ` Clem Cole
2020-05-22 22:00   ` Rob Pike
2020-05-22 23:33   ` Toby Thain
2020-05-22 23:58     ` Win Treese
2020-05-22 22:08 ` Charles Anthony

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