Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site frog.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!cybvax0!frog!rfm
From: rfm@frog.UUCP (Bob Mabee, Software)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: Re: Float Double Parameters
Message-ID: <844@frog.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-Apr-86 14:58:40 EST
Article-I.D.: frog.844
Posted: Tue Apr 22 14:58:40 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Apr-86 03:19:22 EST
References: <5216@alice> <139200025@uiucdcsb>
Reply-To: rfm@frog.UUCP (Robert Mabee)
Organization: Superfrog Heaven [ CRDS, Framingham MA ]
Lines: 14
Keywords: BCPL
Summary: history is still confused

In article <139200025@uiucdcsb> kenny@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU writes:
>						When BCPL was built for the
>635, it borrowed the existing Fortran library and hence had to adopt the
>convention that all float's are promoted to double's for parameter passing.

When DMR put an obsolete version of BCPL on the GE 645, it had no support
for floating-point operations.  We added floating-point operators and
constants during the port from CTSS to the 360.  Later I wrote a new code
generator for the GE 645 (the first BCPL to generate binary directly), and
added the floating-point operators here too, and transcendentals written in
BCPL.  Other functions would have come from the PL/I Multics environment,
which did support single precision.

In any case, BCPL is typeless and would not have known to convert number
formats on function calls.