[TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers?

[Jeffry R. Abramson]

In grad school in the early 80's I was developing instrumentation built
around a CompuPro S-100 system running CP/M-86.  I used the Computer
Innovations C compiler https://www.clipshop.ca/c86/intro.htm , wonder
if I still have a copy on 8-inch floppies somewhere.

On Thu, 2024-03-07 at 17:24 -0700, Marc Rochkind wrote:
> I got my first  computer in 1981, when I was still at Bell Labs. A
> Zenith, as I recall, running CP/M 80. There was a C-like compiler,
> but it was a subset. I think that computer had a z80 chip, so it
> wasn't an x86.
> 
> Then I got an IBM PC in 1982, with an 8088 (16-bit word, 8-bit bus),
> and I'm pretty sure the first real C compiler was Lattice C.
> Microsoft picked it up and called it Microsoft C. Then, maybe a
> couple of years later, they came out with their own C compiler,
> written in-house, I think. (As I recall, I got my Lattice C compiler,
> which was very expensive, for free for writing a review for BYTE
> Magazine, but I can't find the review in my office or online, so
> maybe I'm imagining that. Or maybe I never finished the review or
> they didn't print it.)
> 
> I had an early Macintosh, too, and used Lightspeed C. I think it was
> essentially complete C. It was a whole IDE, incredibly fast, and I
> used it for commercial applications for the Mac. I continued to use
> that until Apple bought Next and revised their product line to use
> NextStep. Then I used what Apple had, but it was Objective-C (blend
> of Smalltalk and C) which is what you wrote NextStep apps in. I think
> we used Objective-C for Mac work until the early 1990s, when I
> stopped writing native Mac apps.
> 
> Lots of missing details here, I'm sure.
> 
> The August 1983 issue of BYTE Magazine was all about C, and has three
> articles reviewing C compilers for CP/M 86, the IBM PC, and CP/M 80.
> There's also an article called "The C Language and Models for Systems
> Programming" by two guys who know about that stuff,  Stephen C.
> Johnson and Brian W. Kernighan. Here's a link to the
> issue: https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1983-08
> 
> Marc
> 
> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 4:45 PM Tom Lyon <pugs78 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I know of Plauger as a Kernighan co-author, so I did a search on
> > AbeBooks and found - a lot of science fiction!  Must investigate.
> > 
> > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 3:27 PM Luther Johnson
> > <luther.johnson at makerlisp.com> wrote:
> > > Oops, misspelled Mr. Plauger's name, pardon me, that's "P.J.
> > > Plauger".
> > > 
> > > On 03/07/2024 04:24 PM, Luther Johnson wrote:
> > > > I don't have any personal tales, but I remember that P.J.
> > > Plaugher's
> > > > company, "Whitesmiths", C compiler was an early, and
> > > influential,
> > > > non-AT&T C compiler.
> > > >
> > > > On 03/07/2024 04:14 PM, Tom Lyon wrote:
> > > >> For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early
> > > history of C
> > > >> compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and
> > > Snyder at
> > > >> Bell.  Especially for x86. Anyone have tales?
> > > >> Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX?
> > > >
> > > 
> 
> 
> -- 
> My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com

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