Hoi, I'm wondering what the name of the B compiler was. Doug's ``Unix Reader'' lists: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 + + + . . . . . . b compile b program . . . . . + + + + bc arbitrary-precision arithmetic language Via Wikipedia I found a scan of the ``Users' Reference to B'', a technical memorandum by Ken, dated 1972-01-07 (which is between the releases of the 1st and 2nd Edition). https://web.archive.org/web/20150317033259/https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dm… There on page 25: 10.0 Usage Currently on UNIX, there is no B command. The B compiler phases must be executed piecemeal. The first phase turns a B source program into an intermediate language. /etc/bc source interm The next phase turns the intermediate language into assembler source, at which time the intermediate language can be removed. /etc/ba interm asource rm interm The next phase assembles the assembler source into the object tile a.out. After this the a.out file can be renamed and the assembler source file can be removed. as asource mv a.out object rm asource The last phase loads the various object files with the necessary libraries in the desired order. ld object /etc/brtl -lb /etc/bilib /etc/brt2 Now a.out contains the completely bound and loaded program and can be executed. a.out A canned sequence of shell commands exists invoked as follows: sh /usr/b/rc x It will compile, convert, assemble and load the file x.b into the executable file a.out. It lists /etc/bc, as a command to convert into the intermediate language, and /etc/ba, to convert the intermediate language into assembler source, but lists no `b' command. The wrapper script is /usr/b/rc. Can someone clarify? I came to this question because I was looking for one letter commands. I always thought them to be a reserved namespace for the user ... Any background on that topic is appreciated as well. ;-) meillo