John  Bayko <bayko@borealis.cs.uregina.ca> wrote:
+---------------
|     Basically, C was the first high level language that was low level
| enough to be useful, getting rid of the conventional abstractions that
| got in the way.
+---------------

Hah! The BLISS language was availabe to non-DEC users long before C was
available to non-AT&T users, had all the usual arithmetic operators, had
no I/O built into the language, a much nicer bit-twiddling structure system,
a *much* nicer macro system, and nicer/cleaner hooks for connecting to
other languages and environments (e.g., you could explicitly declare a
procedure to use "LINKAGE INTERRUPT", neat for writing drivers). And the
code quality of the BLISS-11 compiler [a couple of years after BLISS-10]
was far, *far* better than any C compiler would achieve for more than a
decade to come. But being proprietary to DEC hardware killed it...


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock, 7L-551		rpw3@sgi.com
Silicon Graphics, Inc.		http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
2011 N. Shoreline Blvd.		Phone: 415-933-1673  FAX: 415-933-0979
Mountain View, CA  94043	PP-ASEL-IA