> From: Clem Cole <[email protected]>
> Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:21:36 -0500
> My point was less on PL/1 and more to the point that Ken had access to BCPL
> and did not have BLISS. But he still decided to create what would become
> B.
Ken had no tools for the PDP-7, which was part of a Graphics-1 setup (with a
Type 340 display), not even an assembler. The first thing he wrote on the
GECOS system (not yet shortened to GCOS, since it was a GE 635) was an
assembler, which shared absolutely nothing in terms of syntax with the DEC
assembler for the system.
Remember that BCPL originated on a PDP-7, and had an 18-bit word as its only
data type. Since Ken had only a cross assembler to start with, B was the
simplest interim solution (a BCPL subset in an interpreter).
Rich
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