Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!PT.CS.CMU.EDU!sei!sei.cmu.edu!firth
From: firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: C critisisms
Message-ID: <3694@aw.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 5 Jan 88 14:04:46 GMT
References: <11075@brl-adm.ARPA> <145@snark.UUCP>
Sender: netnews@sei.cmu.edu
Reply-To: firth@bd.sei.cmu.edu.UUCP (Robert Firth)
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, SEI, Pgh, Pa
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In article <145@snark.UUCP> eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
  >In article <7597@sunybcs.UUCP>, ugfailau@joey.UUCP (Fai Lau) writes:
  >>	C stands for Compact, I think, referring to the nature of
  >>the language. Considering the UN*X philophy in naming system
  >>utilities, it is not surpprising that the name has been
  >>consisting of one alphabet.
  >
  >Grrr...if you don't know the answer, don't bloody make one up!
>
>The name 'C' was assigned because the original DMR compiler on the PDP-11 was
>written as the successor to an interpreted language called 'B' that Ritchie
>had been hacking with on the original PDP-7 proto-Unix. B, in turn, was so
>called because it was a stripped-to-the-running-gears version of BCPL
>(aka British Common Programming Language), a typeless Algol-descended
>language developed for systems programming in the mid-60s in England.

That's 'Basic Combined Programming Language'; it was the early '60s, and
Martin did most of the work while in the USA.  Moreover, B was not a
'stripped' version; the main change was to replace the readable Algol
like syntax with one more to the author's taste.

Granted, I have the dubious advantage of having lived through this history,
but surely you guys could look it up?