Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.compilers > #914 > unrolled thread

40 year old compilers

Back to article view | Back to comp.compilers

Contents

  40 year old compilers glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2013-06-03 00:14 +0000
    Re: 40 year old compilers anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-05 16:22 +0000
      Re: 40 year old compilers Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2013-06-06 17:32 +0000
    Re: 40 year old compilers wclodius@earthlink.net (William Clodius) - 2013-06-05 21:30 -0600
      Re: 40 year old compilers "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2013-06-07 18:09 -0500
    Re: 40 year old compilers "Derek M. Jones" <derek@knosof.co.uk> - 2013-06-06 12:52 +0100
    Re: 40 year old compilers Matthias-Christian Ott <ott@mirix.org> - 2013-06-10 00:05 +0200
    40 year old compilers "Charles E. Bortle, Jr." <charlesb.cca@mpowercom.net> - 2013-06-15 03:01 -0700
    Re: 40 year old compilers Fabrice Leal <fabrice.leal.ch@gmail.com> - 2013-06-20 04:04 -0700
    Re: 40 year old compilers Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou@hotmail.com> - 2013-06-21 17:29 +0200

#914 — 40 year old compilers

Someone in comp.lang.c is interested in understanding how a 40 years
old C compilers works, but doesn't know much about compilers.

Seems to me that one way to learn is to read 40 year old compiler books.

I still have http://www.amazon.com/dp/047132776X (Gries) that I bought
about 35 years ago, but that might not be the best to understand
C compilers.

So, I wonder (cross post replies) about favorite 40 year old compiler
books, especially if written using C-like languages for examples, or
otherwise better than average for understanding C compilers.

Most should be availabl for low prices on the used book market.
Gries is $0.01 plus $3.99 for shipping.

For a description of the development of C, and a few other languages,
one might look at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578700094 only about 15
years old, and available used starting at $0.80 (plus shipping).

-- glen
[Seventh edition Unix C compiler description here http://plan9.bell-labs.com/7thEdMan/vol2/ctour.bun ]

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#916

glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> writes:
>So, I wonder (cross post replies) about favorite 40 year old compiler
>books, especially if written using C-like languages

I like [wulf+75]; however, that's mostly about optimizing, and I don't
think that C compilers of that time had serious ambitions in that
direction.

Given that C compilers from 1973 came from Bell Labs, and Al Aho
worked at Bell Labs, the books he coauthored around that time might
fit the bill.

@Book{wulf+75,
  author = 	 {William Wulf and Richard K. Johnsson and Charles
                  B. Weinstock and Steven O. Hobbs and Charles M. Geschke},
  title = 	 {The Design of an Optimizing Compiler},
  publisher = 	 {Elsvier},
  year = 	 {1975},
  isbn =	 {0-444-0164-6},
  annote =	 {Describes a complete Bliss/11 compiler for the
                  PDP-11.  It uses some interesting techniques: it
                  uses a (hand-constructed) tree parsing automaton for
                  parts of the code selection (Section~3.4); it
                  optimizes the use of unary complement operators
                  (Section~3.3); it uses a smart scheme to represent
                  a conservative approximation of the lifetime of
                  variables in constant space and uses that for
                  register allocation (Sections~4.1.3 and~4.3).}
}

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#920

On Wed, 2013-06-05, Anton Ertl wrote:
> glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> writes:
>>So, I wonder (cross post replies) about favorite 40 year old compiler
>>books, especially if written using C-like languages
>
> I like [wulf+75]; however, that's mostly about optimizing, and I don't
> think that C compilers of that time had serious ambitions in that
> direction.
>
> Given that C compilers from 1973 came from Bell Labs, and Al Aho
> worked at Bell Labs, the books he coauthored around that time might
> fit the bill.

There's also the CSTR series of technical reports from Bell Labs itself:

  http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cstr.html
  http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cstr/bib

A lot of them relate to compilers (but not all are available online,
not from Bell Labs anyway).

/Jorgen

--
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#917

glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

> Someone in comp.lang.c is interested in understanding how a 40 years
> old C compilers works, but doesn't know much about compilers.

How good is the interested party in reading assembler. The 7094 emulator
comes with ithe Fortran compiler, more than fifty years old as of this
date.
http://www.piercefuller.com/oldibm-shadow/709x.html

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#921

> How good is the interested party in reading assembler. The 7094 emulator
> comes with ithe Fortran compiler, more than fifty years old as of this
> date.  http://www.piercefuller.com/oldibm-shadow/709x.html
>

I'd be interested in reading Xerox Data Systems... Sigma 9 assembly
language.

--

numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#918

glen,

> Someone in comp.lang.c is interested in understanding how a 40 years
> old C compilers works, but doesn't know much about compilers.

This begs the question of what is the oldest compiler still in
production use.

Here is a non-C candidate:
http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/2012/08/31/the-oldest-compiler-still-in-production-use-is/

> Seems to me that one way to learn is to read 40 year old compiler books.

They don't always reflect reality on the ground.

Here is a 30 year old C compiler:
http://www.desmet-c.com/

and of course the grandaddy of them all:
http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/primevalC.html

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#923

On 2013-06-03 02:14, glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:
> Someone in comp.lang.c is interested in understanding how a 40 years
> old C compilers works, but doesn't know much about compilers.

Some older C compilers that were included in early versions of Unix can
be found at:

http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl

Regards,
Matthias-Christian

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#925

> I still have http://www.amazon.com/dp/047132776X (Gries) that I bought
> about 35 years ago, but that might not be the best to understand
> C compilers.
> Most should be availabl for low prices on the used book market.
> Gries is $0.01 plus $3.99 for shipping.

Putting my 2cents in...

My copy of Gries, purchased in 1974, still has the Cal State Long
Beach bookstore price tag on the inside of the cover...$19.75. ;-)
(No, I was not taking a compiler class at the time...I was just
interested in learing how to write compilers.)  Actually, I was a
business major (Accounting) but spent 11 years as a computer
technician at MAI Basic Four, Inc.  I took a Fortran IV class as part
of my Business electives and eventually realized I could write a
Fortran compiler using what I later learned was called Recursive
Descent parsing...that was in '74 and I hired in at Basic Four in '77.
I am oriented more to Top Down rather than the Bottom Up that is
generally used to parse C.  Gries did cover both.  Along the way I
learned digital electronics and began learning how to build
microprocessor based computers.  I even designed a horizontal
microprogrammed super mini (never could aford to build it though) so I
got to see both the hardware and software side of compiler tech.

Charles Bortle
charlesb@calvaryanaheim.org
[Somehow I ended up with two copies even though my undergrad compiler
course didn't use the book.  Gries was quite young when he wrote that
book and is still around, by the way. http://www.cs.cornell.edu/gries/
-John]

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#928

There's this project https://github.com/mortdeus/legacy-cc, that
claims to be "the earliest version of the very first c compiler known
to exist in the wild written by the late legend himself dmr."

> Someone in comp.lang.c is interested in understanding how a 40 years
> old C compilers works, but doesn't know much about compilers.

> [Seventh edition Unix C compiler description here http://plan9.bell-labs.com/7thEdMan/vol2/ctour.bun ]

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#929

Am 03.06.2013 02:14, schrieb glen herrmannsfeldt:
> Someone in comp.lang.c is interested in understanding how a 40 years
> old C compilers works, but doesn't know much about compilers.
>
> Seems to me that one way to learn is to read 40 year old compiler books. ...

Have a look at books from Aho and Ullman. Those are well written
(IMO) and were quasi standard to read hereabouts around the late
1970's and 1980's.

Janis
[That's the classic 1977 Dragon Book, rather than the more recent
and much more expensive editions.  Link to Amazon"
http://net.gurus.org/bk/a/0201000229 -John]

[toc] | [prev] | [standalone]

Back to top | Article view | comp.compilers

csiph-web