2.1
Brief
History of C
C’s ancestors include Combined
Programming Language (CPL), Basic Combined Programming Language (BCPL), B, and
ALGOL 68. CPL was developed at Cambridge University in the early 1960’s. BCPL
is a simple systems language developed by Martin Richards in 1967 [SEBE96]. A
systems language is a programming language used to create operating systems
(like Windows and DOS) and compilers (like Visual Basic). ALGOL68 or
Algorithmic Language, on the other hand, was developed for scientific
applications.
The first high-level language
implemented under the UNIX operating system was designed and implemented in
1970 in Bell Laboratories by Ken Thompson. This was B, which was based on BCPL.
Neither BCPL nor B is a typed
language. Being untyped means that all data are considered machine
words, which may be simple but leads to many complications. Because of this
complication and several other problems, it led to the development of a new
typed language based on B. Originally called NB (New B) but later named C, it
was designed and implemented by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Laboratories in 1972. In
some cases through BCPL, and in other cases directly, C
was influenced by ALGOL 68.
For more than a decade since C’s
inception, the only standard was the book by Kernighan and Ritchie. Over time,
several implementers added different features thus creating different versions
of C. Between 1982 and 1988, ANSI produced a new official description of C which
included many of the features that implementors had already incorporated into
the language.
Timeline:
1963
1967 1968 1970 1972
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