[TUHS] changes in C compilers

arnold at skeeve.com arnold at skeeve.com
Sun Aug 26 04:30:27 AEST 2018


The APS work started in the summer of 1979. See http://www.eprg.org/papers/202paper.pdf
and see some of the other stuff at
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/202/index.html.

I think that's after V7 was released.

Arnold

Clem cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> Arnold, I caution on absolutes.   Typesetter C predates V7.  It was for V6 but a release of ditroff  may have been after V7. - do remember something like that in the early 80s.  What I do not remember the order of which compilers.  The driver for writing ditroff was the Labs getting an APS5 typesetter which was in the late 70s.  
>
> And (I???m less) certain here, I think Bourne once told me they used the APS5 for the V7 manual set masters because it supported more fonts.   
>
> Btw. The whole reason why typesetter C had a compiler included was the v6 compiler was not insufficient (primarily missing support for stdio) but V7 was not.  
>
> That said the dates and some of the ordering are fuzzy in my mind at this point.  I???m trying to use other things that I have absolute dates for and trying line them up.   
>
> We had V5, quickly upgraded the V6, then TS and finally V7.  I left in late Spring ???79.   That order I know is right and Ted was the reason we had TS as he brought it with him in 76 / 77.  (Same for the proofs for K&R1).   
>
> We got typesetter C at some point I thought before Ted brought TS but that???s fuzzy.  
>
> Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not quite. 
>
> > On Aug 24, 2018, at 3:02 AM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> > 
> > My two cents, ...
> > 
> >> From: Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com>
> >> Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2018 20:30:19 -0400
> >> To: ron at ronnatalie.com
> >> Subject: Re: [TUHS] C++ / Kernel
> >> 
> >> Yep.  Im pretty sure I remember void being in typesetter C also.   IIRC the
> >> differences between that version of Dennis???s compiler and what was included
> >> in 7th Edition was mostly in the libraries ie stdio was first released as
> >> part of the typesetter compiler but it was still a work in progress.
> > 
> > K&R 1 did not have void or structure assignment. Those came later,
> > although I'm not sure when.  They may have been mentioned in an
> > appendix; my copy isn't handy to check.
> > 
> > At what point did each struct become its own namespace? I think
> > around the time of K&R1.
> > 
> >> From: Clem cole <clemc at ccc.com>
> >> Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2018 22:52:24 -0400
> >> To: Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
> >> Subject: Re: [TUHS] C++ / Kernel
> >> 
> >> ...
> >> 
> >> The big changes to the language were between 6th Edition and Typesetter
> >> which were done in concert if not to support Brian???s work on the troff
> >> rewrite.  Plus the first draft of book was being written around then also.
> > 
> > The troff rewrite was later, circa '81 or so. Definitely NOT in the
> > V6/V7 timeframe.
> > 
> > Arnold



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