[TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers?

[Lawrence Stewart]

Here’s a strange one.

In 1981 or early 1982, Bill Duval at Xerox Systems Development Division had a C compiler which ran on the Alto and generated code for x86.
Dan Swinehart and I used it to write the software for the PARC Etherphone, which ran on dual 8088 systems.

No idea really whether it was a hobby project or what.  I did hear a rumor that SDD was thinking of building x86 based systems, but I don’t know if they ever happened.

(aside: Duval was one of those guys who used the 3 mouse buttons and the 5 key keyset as a chorded keyboard and never moved his hands.)

-Larry