Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Comparison operators (was: He's not the only one at it again!)
Message-ID: <2377@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 2 Aug 90 13:15:36 GMT
References: <25681@cs.yale.edu> <9007301417.AA21099@thep.lu.se>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 23

In article <9007301417.AA21099@thep.lu.se> magnus@THEP.LU.SE (Magnus Olsson) writes:

| The people behind C *deliberately* changed the Algol operators
| '=' and ':=' to '==' and '=' to save keystrokes - in most programs,

  But the change was made in B, not C, and just carried over. It may
well have been in BCPL, but I haven't written any in so long I'll have
to look it up.

  When I generated a tiny implementation language I went back to := to
avoid typing mistakes, and used <> instead of != because a lot more
people could read it first time.

  The language ran on a number of CPU's, including the GE600 (now
Honelwell) and Intel 8080, and 8085 using the undocumented instructions
for stack access.

  Historical note: when GE made terminet printers, some versions used
the 8085 and those special instructions. GE had a contract with Intel to
supply the CPU with the instructions working.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
            "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me