[TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers?

[Bakul Shah via TUHS]

What is the history of Plan9's C compiler? Was it a from scratch implementation?

> On Mar 7, 2024, at 4:57 PM, Rob Pike <robpike at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Chris Fraser and Dave Hanson did LLC and wrote a book about it, very clean and pedagogically valuable.
> 
> https://www.amazon.com.au/Retargetable-C-Compiler-Design-Implementation/dp/0805316701
> 
> -rob
> 
> 
> On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 11:31 AM Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com <mailto:imp at bsdimp.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:08 PM Rich Salz <rich.salz at gmail.com <mailto:rich.salz at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> I believe Snyder was an MIT Master's thesis, finished in 1975[1].  There was a fair amount of C and compiler work at MIT LCS, perhaps JNC can post some info. I think Snyder's compiler was used for the MIT PC/IP[2] project; the links at BitSavers imply they are related. PC/IP brought TCP and clients to DOS 3 machines and was commercialized as FTP software and was one of the reasons for the creation of the MIT license[4]. BDS C[3] was done by an MIT drop-out, Leor Zolman. I bought my first motorcycle from him :) BDS C was used for the first implementations of MINCE (mince is not complete emacs -- those kinds of acronyms were popular) and Scribble, downsized clones of emacs and Scribe, respectively.
>>> 
>>> [1] http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/specpub.php?id=717
>>> [2] https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pcip-1986.pdf
>>> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C
>>> [4] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9263265
>> 
>> Judging from what's at the bitsavers I posted, the source for pcip and this is the backstory to them.
>> 
>> Warner

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20240307/64f41d3b/attachment.htm>