Rick Ethridge
Veteran Member
Promal.
Algol had problems. The Liverpool Software Gazette issue 3 explains some of the issues of getting Algol-68C running on a Z-80. Article starts on page 52 and can be downloaded http://www.80bus.co.uk/pages/magazines.htm
Action! was a sort-of Algol-68 subset for 6502 machines, notably the Atari line. I don't see any successful efforts to get a full Algol implementation running on a 8-bit system.
C should work on this computer.
As above "C" compilers are challenging and perhaps not very efficient on 8-bit computers with only 64K of memory. There have been various scaled down versions with names like "small C", "Tiny C" etc most of which implement a sub-set of "C". Cross compiling is possible but if you only have an 8-bit computer its not great...
I think the best 8-bit computers for running C were CP/M based systems with 128Kb which would use CP/M Plus, though the standardisation of C to ANSI came later when it was felt portability of code was important. I'm unsure though where K&R came into the picture, though C was written initially as a Systems Language on a large computer (PDP I think) of the late 60s/early 70s, which was what UNIX was written with I presume.
Unix predates C. C was originally created to run on a PDP-11 which had supported a maximum of 64k of data and 64k of code for a single process. Mini-Unix could run a C compiler on the PDP11/10 which supported a maximum of 28k words (56k Bytes). On mini-UNIX, compilations took twice as long because of the memory constraints. Z-80s with CP/M look positively spacious.
Wikipedia said:In 1972, Unix was rewritten in the C programming language. The migration from assembly to the higher-level language C resulted in much more portable software, requiring only a relatively small amount of machine-dependent code to be replaced when porting Unix to other computing platforms.
Wikipedia said:The development of C started in 1972 on the PDP-11 Unix system and first appeared in Version 2 Unix. The language was not initially designed with portability in mind, but soon ran on different platforms as well: a compiler for the Honeywell 6000 was written within the first year of C's history, while an IBM System/370 port followed soon.The name of C simply continued the alphabetic order started by B.
Also in 1972, a large part of Unix was rewritten in C. By 1973, with the addition of struct types, the C language had become powerful enough that most of the Unix's kernel was now in C.
Apparently the Wikipedia page for Unix contradicts this, which suggests C + Assembly were used to write Unix. The connection with K&R C being Brian Kernighan & Dennis Ritchie as credited as Developers of Unix.
Well that's misleading of Wikipedia!
Has anyone pointed out their mistake?
I could make a list of egregious errors I've found within Wikipedia. But I don't care anymore.
When I suggest changes, with references, I either get shot down mostly because I'm just not really a Wikipedian, or, what happened the last time. In 2010 or so, they flat out banned me because I suggested the removal of some blatantly irrelevant global warming propaganda from a page which normally could not possibly be related to global warming.
Aside from global warming, I found it best just to never point out errors in computer history.
Most of Wikipedia is pretty neutral, but there are a few places where agendas run strong.
Apparently the Wikipedia page for Unix contradicts this, which suggests C + Assembly were used to write Unix. The connection with K&R C being Brian Kernighan & Dennis Ritchie as credited as Developers of Unix.
No, it doesn't say that. It says that Unix was re-written when the PDP-11 came onto the scene and that the nascent C was used for part of it.. Unix existed before the PDP-11. See my quotes above.
I could make a list of egregious errors I've found within Wikipedia. But I don't care anymore.
When I suggest changes, with references, I either get shot down mostly because I'm just not really a Wikipedian, or, what happened the last time. In 2010 or so, they flat out banned me because I suggested the removal of some blatantly irrelevant global warming propaganda from a page which normally could not possibly be related to global warming.
Aside from global warming, I found it best just to never point out errors in computer history.
Most of Wikipedia is pretty neutral, but there are a few places where agendas run strong.
Most of the time when edits get shot down, it's because you don't include references, so I referenced the Dennis Ritchie essay.