From: Toby Thain <toby@telegraphics.com.au>
To: Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com>
Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] History of popularity of C
Date: Thu, 21 May 2020 19:45:36 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <f344e78a-50c6-5ed7-b613-3a15f4be652f@telegraphics.com.au> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2OuEd_qOudSfzBynH34t4cObOcZ1Hk10SsS3Hy0AC-J=Q@mail.gmail.com>
On 2020-05-21 4:56 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, May 21, 2020 at 12:17 PM Toby Thain <toby@telegraphics.com.au
> <mailto:toby@telegraphics.com.au>> wrote:
>
> - inexpensive compiler availability was not very good until ~1990
> orlater,
>
> Hrrumpt The Gnu C compiler was starting to be available by the
> mid-1980s in alpha/beta form. rms was looking for places to start. He
Right, things were changing, but costly C compilers were a reality well
into the 90s, unless your use case happened to coincide with a gcc port.
And the reason this matters is that it contradicts the "C is popular
because compilers were easy" assertion. Not "easy", and not necessarily
cheap or free either.
> approached a number of folks, from Tanenbaum to some of the vendors (he
> knew Masscomp had written a compiler from scratch which we away the
> binaries gave to our customers and he called me asking if we would
> donate it. We had donated development hardware and I was still his
> contact to the Gnu project at that point).
>
> As far as I know, he ended up writing his own because he could not find
> one to start with. ...
>
>
>
>
>
> but C had been taking off like wildfire for 10 years before that
>
> At least 15 years before. By 1975, it was a solid fixture at most
> Universities.
Yes. I should have said "more than 10" :-)
--Toby
>
>
>
> - by the time gcc was mature (by some definition, but probably
> before1990)
>
> Mature is the key word here. gcc does not really start to mature until
> Cygnus takes it over. But it was quite usable for the systems that
> targetted it.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-05-21 23:46 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 105+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-05-21 15:27 Tyler Adams
2020-05-21 16:10 ` Toby Thain
2020-05-21 16:30 ` Larry McVoy
2020-05-21 17:22 ` John Foust
2020-05-21 20:17 ` Toby Thain
2020-05-21 16:43 ` Tony Finch
2020-05-21 17:35 ` arnold
2020-05-21 19:16 ` CHARLES KESTER
2020-05-21 20:33 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-21 20:09 ` Toby Thain
2020-05-21 20:12 ` Tony Finch
2020-05-22 8:28 ` David Arnold
2020-05-21 20:07 ` Toby Thain
2020-05-21 20:56 ` Clem Cole
2020-05-21 23:45 ` Toby Thain [this message]
2020-05-21 23:57 ` Richard Salz
2020-05-22 0:17 ` Toby Thain
2020-05-22 4:10 ` John Gilmore
2020-05-22 14:11 ` Larry McVoy
2020-05-22 14:34 ` Richard Salz
2020-05-22 14:17 ` Larry McVoy
2020-05-22 7:42 ` arnold
2020-05-22 23:50 ` Greg A. Woods
2020-05-23 7:28 ` Andy Kosela
2020-05-23 17:08 ` Clem Cole
2020-05-23 17:22 ` Richard Salz
2020-05-23 18:42 ` Derek Fawcus
2020-05-23 19:28 ` Michael Kjörling
2020-05-26 4:21 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-05-26 4:32 ` Ed Carp
2020-05-26 8:21 ` Rob Pike
2020-05-26 14:44 ` Clem Cole
2020-05-26 14:32 ` Clem Cole
2020-05-26 19:50 ` Greg A. Woods
2020-05-26 21:48 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-26 22:36 ` Greg A. Woods
2020-05-27 14:37 ` Ronald Natalie
2020-05-27 15:09 ` Clem Cole
2020-05-27 16:11 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-27 19:49 ` Greg A. Woods
2020-05-27 20:13 ` Larry McVoy
2020-05-27 20:23 ` Richard Salz
2020-05-27 21:00 ` Nevin Liber
2020-05-27 23:17 ` Greg A. Woods
2020-06-05 20:57 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-06-05 21:40 ` Nemo Nusquam
2020-06-05 21:47 ` Richard Salz
2020-06-05 22:01 ` Bakul Shah
2020-06-06 20:49 ` Ed Carp
2020-06-06 21:08 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-06-06 21:13 ` Larry McVoy
2020-06-06 22:27 ` Ed Carp
2020-06-06 23:14 ` Tyler Adams
2020-06-07 5:57 ` arnold
2020-06-07 9:22 ` Andy Kosela
2020-06-07 9:39 ` Ed Carp
2020-06-07 10:02 ` Brantley Coile
2020-06-07 11:30 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-06-07 15:26 ` Clem Cole
2020-06-07 15:52 ` Larry McVoy
2020-06-08 1:02 ` Adam Thornton
2020-06-08 8:04 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-06-07 17:26 ` Bakul Shah
2020-06-07 17:35 ` Bakul Shah
2020-06-07 18:50 ` Nemo Nusquam
2020-06-07 21:15 ` Chris Torek
2020-06-07 22:16 ` Dan Cross
2020-06-07 22:56 ` Chris Torek
2020-06-07 23:14 ` [TUHS] Comparative languages Warren Toomey
2020-06-08 0:24 ` [TUHS] History of popularity of C Bram Wyllie
2020-06-08 5:48 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-06 23:31 ` Bakul Shah
2020-06-07 0:12 ` Greg A. Woods
2020-06-07 11:04 ` emanuel stiebler
2020-06-07 11:33 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-26 15:19 ` Toby Thain
2020-05-26 16:00 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-26 16:21 ` Christopher Browne
2020-05-26 19:29 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-26 19:55 ` Dan Cross
2020-05-26 20:00 ` Jon Steinhart
2020-05-21 16:18 ` Jim Capp
2020-05-21 18:58 ` A. P. Garcia
2020-05-21 19:02 ` Clem Cole
2020-05-21 18:28 Noel Chiappa
2020-05-21 18:44 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-21 19:06 ` Paul Winalski
2020-05-21 20:27 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-22 8:52 ` Tom Ivar Helbekkmo via TUHS
2020-05-22 9:51 ` Tyler Adams
2020-05-22 11:09 ` arnold
2020-05-22 11:15 ` Tyler Adams
2020-05-22 18:40 ` John Gilmore
2020-05-22 19:01 ` Toby Thain
2020-05-22 19:35 ` Larry McVoy
2020-05-22 19:31 ` Larry McVoy
2020-05-22 20:19 ` Michael Kjörling
2020-05-22 14:59 ` Toby Thain
2020-05-22 11:58 ` A. P. Garcia
2020-06-06 21:49 Doug McIlroy
2020-06-06 21:55 ` Warner Losh
2020-06-08 13:56 ` Derek Fawcus
2020-06-08 15:20 ` Richard Salz
2020-06-08 15:30 ` Dan Cross
2020-06-08 16:32 ` Tony Finch
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