On Sun, Aug 11, 2024 at 07:04:59AM +1000, onefang wrote:
> On 2024-08-10 12:32:30, Peter Duffy wrote:
> > Presumably, some of the team members were aware of the BCPL language,
> > which had been one of the first languages to focus on portability
> > (somewhere, I've still got my copy of the "BCPL book", which contains
> > the source code for much of the compiler). This apparently led to the
> > idea of a language which was powerful and versatile enough to code an
> > entire operating system. Then, to transfer the OS to a new hardware
> > platform, it should only be necessary to implement a compiler for the
> > language in the context of the new platform's current system, or a
> > cross-compiler on the existing one, and then the entire OS could be
> > recompiled for the new platform (it would always be necessary to do
> > some work at the assembly level to interface the system with the new
> > hardware). Working on this basis, the team came up with a language
> > which they called B (presumably A must have vanished without trace) -
> > and eventually further work led to C.
>
> Actually the B came from the first letter of BCPL, C being the second
> letter.

OIC "B", "C", "Python", "Lua" ;-)