4 ms·

1) The popularity of UNIX where C was the standard language 2) The fact that, much like BASIC, most implementations of the language didn't follow the standard.

1) The popularity of UNIX where C was the standard language 2) The fact that, much like BASIC, most implementations of the language didn't follow the standard. In practice, Turbo Pascal was more of a standard than the official one.

detaro 9y ago
Wasn't the latter part just as true for early C?
- jhbadger 9y ago
  There certainly were/are differences across platforms in C (hence config scripts), but for the most part those aren't issues with the language itself but with the supplied libraries.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Oh the joys of writing portable code across Aix, HP-UX, Solaris using their own compilers, using a mix of K&R and ANSI C. Many computers just had something like Small-C available.
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      Even using GCC it could be a problem. Aix would want a different type for this function call, Solaris for that function call, Linux for this other function call. We had #ifdefs around a lot of variable declarations. Fortunately, we were at least all ANSI.
rpeden 9y ago
It was more than just the popularity of Unix. A while back, I ended up following a link on HN and reading a bunch of old computer magazines. I came across an article by Peter Norton (in PC Magazine) from around 1986 or 87. In it, he discussed why C was rapidly displacing Pascal among DOS programmers. Not that Unix didn't have an effect, but as DOS and then windows exploded in popularity in the 80s, C displacing Pascal there played a big role in Pascal's overall decline vs C. edit: I think this is the article I'm thinking of: https://books.google.ca/books?id=NZrPkWywRXgC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.ca/books?id=NZrPkWywRXgC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA...
- pjmlp 9y ago
  In those days without Internet and expensive dial-up access to BBS limited to 5 simultaneous users, it depended very much where in the globe we are talking about. On my area in Portugal, using C was mostly for university projects. For anything else we were using Turbo Pascal and Assembly, with Clipper for business applications. Actually many MS-DOS systems programming books had code listings in C, Pascal and Assembly.
  - rpeden 9y ago
    A BBS with 5 simultaneous users? Sounds amazing. Most of the BBSes here in the Toronto area only had a single phone line. :)
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      Yep, at least they had 5 different numbers, but given the price of regional phone calls, I only used it a couple of times during a Summer job.

detaro 9y ago

Wasn't the latter part just as true for early C?

jhbadger 9y ago
There certainly were/are differences across platforms in C (hence config scripts), but for the most part those aren't issues with the language itself but with the supplied libraries.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Oh the joys of writing portable code across Aix, HP-UX, Solaris using their own compilers, using a mix of K&R and ANSI C. Many computers just had something like Small-C available.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    Even using GCC it could be a problem. Aix would want a different type for this function call, Solaris for that function call, Linux for this other function call. We had #ifdefs around a lot of variable declarations. Fortunately, we were at least all ANSI.

rpeden 9y ago

It was more than just the popularity of Unix. A while back, I ended up following a link on HN and reading a bunch of old computer magazines. I came across an article by Peter Norton (in PC Magazine) from around 1986 or 87. In it, he discussed why C was rapidly displacing Pascal among DOS programmers. Not that Unix didn't have an effect, but as DOS and then windows exploded in popularity in the 80s, C displacing Pascal there played a big role in Pascal's overall decline vs C. edit: I think this is the article I'm thinking of: https://books.google.ca/books?id=NZrPkWywRXgC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.ca/books?id=NZrPkWywRXgC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA...

pjmlp 9y ago
In those days without Internet and expensive dial-up access to BBS limited to 5 simultaneous users, it depended very much where in the globe we are talking about. On my area in Portugal, using C was mostly for university projects. For anything else we were using Turbo Pascal and Assembly, with Clipper for business applications. Actually many MS-DOS systems programming books had code listings in C, Pascal and Assembly.
- rpeden 9y ago
  A BBS with 5 simultaneous users? Sounds amazing. Most of the BBSes here in the Toronto area only had a single phone line. :)
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Yep, at least they had 5 different numbers, but given the price of regional phone calls, I only used it a couple of times during a Summer job.