[TUHS] What would early alternatives to C have been?

[Paul McJones]

Ken,

Was smalgol also known as BC Algol, as described here:

https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/algol60impl/#BC_ALGOL

> On Mar 9, 2025, at 12:06 PM, Ken Thompson <kenbob at gmail.com <mailto:kenbob at gmail.com>>
>  wrote:
> 
> how about smalgol?
> 
> it was an algol-like language with just int and float types.
> i dont know its history, but it came out of berkeley near
> when Niklaus Wirth was there. it compiled for the ibm 7094
> in normal batch processing fashion. i converted it to a jit
> into memory in order to skip the loading phase. i used
> it for a lot of my fun-work. (1965-66)
> 
> mainframe time, then, was a big factor in the computing process.
> smalgol could compile, load, and run in about 1 cpu-second.
> 
> smalgol was all ibm-cards, but it was on my mind through
> the bcpl to b to nb phases. i would use the modern word
> "influencer.”


Paul McJones


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