[TUHS] Any UNIX With No C In Userland?

[Dan Cross]

On Thu, Mar 6, 2025 at 1:23 AM Lars Brinkhoff <lars at nocrew.org> wrote:
> Dan Cross writes:
> > John Levine wrote:
> >> I believe the earliest versions of C were on a GE 635, a word addressed
> >> machine comparable to a PDP-10.  But it moved to a PDP-11 soon enough
> > This is a startling claim that I have never heard before. [...] C did
> > not appear until they were solidly on the PDP-11, and was developed on
> > that machine. The earliest connections to other machines were Dennis
> > Ritchie constructing a cross-compiler for B that ran on the PDP-7
>
> Whilst I agree the claim is startling, there is a connection between
> early C and the GE 635.  The little known Snyder C compiler has back
> ends for the PDP-10, PDP-11, and Honeywell 6000 series (nee GE 635).
>
> https://github.com/PDP-10/Snyder-C-compiler/blob/master/MAC-TR-149.pdf
>
> I believe this compiler was started when Snyder visited Bell Labs in
> 1973, and it comes with a very archaic version of Yacc.

Interesting. I wonder if this is the basis for Dennis mentioning the
GE-635 port in the C history paper?

        - Dan C.