Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!aurora!labrea!decwrl!sun!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: The history of C (was Re: C critisisms)
Summary: one last time
Message-ID: <536@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 15 Jan 88 00:12:34 GMT
References: <11075@brl-adm.ARPA> <145@snark.UUCP> <881@micomvax.UUCP> <883@micomvax.UUCP>
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 27

(1) There is only one BCPL.
(2) BCPL stands for Basic Combined Programming Language
                    -     -        -           -
    Not British, not Binary:  Basic.
    Not Common, not Computer:  Combined.
(3) CPL was described in "The main features of CPL", Barron, Buxton,
    Hartley, Nixon, and Strachey, in Computer Journal, vol 6, p134 (1963).
    This is the Strachey of Scott-Strachey semantics.
(4) BCPL is described in "BCPL, The Language and its Compiler",
    Richards and Whitby-Strevens, Cambridge University Press, 1980.
    There is also a paper "BCPL - a tool for compiler writing and
    systems programming", Richards, SJCC v34 pp 557-66 (1969).
    There is also

	The BCPL programming manual
	Canaday and Richie	<---
	Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill (1969)

(5) The principal designer of BCPL was Martin Richards.
(6) I have no idea who Hendry may be.  No-one of that name is cited
    in the BCPL book or in the Harbison & Steel book on C.
(7) CPL was a joint Cambridge/London effort, but to the best of my
    knowledge BCPL was a Cambridge production.

The picture has been confused by a lot of people providing misinformation.
Any good computer science library should be able to furnish you with
several articles on BCPL.