The Origins of C
C was invented and first implemented by Dennis Ritchie on a DEC PDP-II that used the UNIX operating system. C is the result of a development process that started with an older language called BCPL. BCPL was developed by Martin Richards and it influenced a language called B, which was invented by Ken Thompson. B led to the development of C in the 1970’s.
For many years, the de facto standard for C was the version supplied with the UNIX operating system. It was first described in The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978). With the rise in popularity of personal computers, numerous C implementations were created. In a near miracle, most of these implementations were highly compatible (That is a program written for one of them could usually be successfully compiled using another). However, because no standard existed, there were discrepancies. To remedy this situation, a committee was established in the summer of 1983 to create an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard that would define the C language once and for all. The standardization process took six years (much longer than anyone reasonably expected). The ANSI C standard was finally adopted in December of 1989, with the first copies becoming available in early 1990. Today, all mainstream C/C++ compilers comply with the ANSI C standard. Also, the ANSI C standard is a base document of the proposed ANSI C++ standard.
For many years, the de facto standard for C was the version supplied with the UNIX operating system. It was first described in The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978). With the rise in popularity of personal computers, numerous C implementations were created. In a near miracle, most of these implementations were highly compatible (That is a program written for one of them could usually be successfully compiled using another). However, because no standard existed, there were discrepancies. To remedy this situation, a committee was established in the summer of 1983 to create an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard that would define the C language once and for all. The standardization process took six years (much longer than anyone reasonably expected). The ANSI C standard was finally adopted in December of 1989, with the first copies becoming available in early 1990. Today, all mainstream C/C++ compilers comply with the ANSI C standard. Also, the ANSI C standard is a base document of the proposed ANSI C++ standard.
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