[TUHS] Hypothetical: Could MULTICS have been written in C, if available?

[John Levine via TUHS]

It appears that Bakul Shah via TUHS <bakul at iitbombay.org> said:
>On May 25, 2026, at 5:24 PM, Clem Cole via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Coming back to the question of PL/1 *vs. *C, I have a longer responce on
>> quora:  https://www.quora.com/What-makes-the-C-language-powerful that I
>> will crib here.   When PL/1 and Algol68 were being created, and frankly,
>> later with Ada and others, there was always a tendency to go overboard.
>> But to me, the less-is-more rule applies: C is powerful not only because of
>> what is in the language but also because of what Dennis (and Ken) left out.
>
>IMHO it is less less-is-more and more the *low-level* nature of C.
>Didn't IBM too used a "high level" low level language PL/S for MVS?

PL/S was quite stripped down ahd had ways to referece specific registers
and even include in-line assember.  It looked like PL/I but was if anything
lower level than C.

You are right there were lots of other similar languages like PL/M.  I liked
PL360, which was a high level assembler using Algolish syntax used to develop
Algol W.

R's,
John