[pups] Bringing up the fist C compiler

Johnny Billquist bqt at update.uu.se
Thu Sep 5 19:38:06 AEST 2002


On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Tim Bradshaw wrote:

> Is there a description anywhere of how C was originally bootstrapped?
> I'm sure it was nothing unconventional, but the question of how you
> bring up compilers for other languages which are implemented in their
> own language seems to mystify some people to the extent that they
> argue that the compiler must be written in C (which is `always
> there'), and I thought it would be good to have the real story about C
> to tell them.

Well, I have a C compiler written in MACRO-11...
C wasn't written in C at the start, you know...

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol




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