a history question

[Bob]

Was C really the first language to be platform independent?
If yes what was the nature of other languages which were there before
C like fortran ,basic,cobol?
weren't they platform independent at that time?
what were the platform they were running on then?

greetings,
Bob

 

[Chris Torek]

Was C really the first language to be platform independent?

This question is not terribly well-formed, in my opinion. The only
possible answer is "no" though.

C is not itself "platform independent". Neither, on the other hand,
is C "platform dependent" in the way (say) assembly or machine code
is. It is possible to write C programs that are portable to every
C89 or C99 (or any other particular standard) system.

If yes what was the nature of other languages which were there before
C like fortran ,basic,cobol?

It was always possible to write Fortran and COBOL programs that
would do the same thing on any standard-conforming system, as well.
C's unique (at the time) nature was that it was possible to write
complex, highly-useful programs that, while not "100% portable",
were easy to port from one system to another, even if those systems
were remarkably different from each other. For instance, "BSD
networking" systems ran on machines as dissimilar as the VAX and
the Data General Eclipse[%], with some porting work. Doing the same
in Fortran or COBOL would have been much more difficult.

[% These systems are not as different as, say, a VAX and a Symbolics
Lisp machine, or a Burroughs A-series. Both the VAX and the Eclipse
had 8-bit bytes. The Eclipse, however, had 16-bit "word" pointers
as its native pointers, and the C compiler used these for "int *"
and the like, so that "char *" to "int *" conversions used shift
instructions.]

Similarly-portable systems were constructed with Fortran as an
underlying language, but using a "preprocessor" (Ratfor). We had
these available on a Univac 1100-series machine, and whenever I
had to use that machine, I would use the "ed" editor instead of
the one built into EXEC-8.

 

[Dan Pop]

Was C really the first language to be platform independent?

Nope, it was a relatively late comer to the world of high level
programming languages.

If yes what was the nature of other languages which were there before
C like fortran ,basic,cobol?

FORTRAN was the first high level language of any relevance. It predates
C by about 15 years.

weren't they platform independent at that time?

All high level languages are, by definition, platform independent. This
is what makes them HLLs in the first place, even if some are higher level
than the others.

what were the platform they were running on then?

Far too many to be enumerated here. FORTRAN was implemented on
practically any hosted platform of historical relevance (postdating its
inception).

Dan

 

[Fred L. Kleinschmidt]

Was C really the first language to be platform independent?
If yes what was the nature of other languages which were there before
C like fortran ,basic,cobol?
weren't they platform independent at that time?
what were the platform they were running on then?

greetings,
Bob

Depending on what you mean by a "platform independent language," one
could say that all of the languages you mention above are platform
independent, or that none of them are - including C.

From today's most common usage of the term, none of the languages you
mention - including C - are platform independent; This means that if you
compile your program on platform A (say a PC running Windows NT), that
compiled code will not execute on platform B (say a VAX running VMS).

However, if you wrote the source code in compliance with that language's
standard (say Fortran 77, or C89, or..., then the SOURCE code is
"platform independent", meaning that you could compile it platform A and
execute that on platform A, or compile it on platform B and execute that
on platform B, etc., without any changes in the source code.

 

[E. Robert Tisdale]

Was C really the first language to be platform independent?
No!

If yes what was the nature of other languages
which were there before C like Fortran, BASIC, COBOL?
Weren't they platform independent at that time?
What were the platform they were running on then?

I used Google

http://www.google.com/

to search for

+"History of Computing"

and I found lots of stuff.

 

[CBFalconer]

Was C really the first language to be platform independent?
If yes what was the nature of other languages which were there
before C like fortran ,basic,cobol?
weren't they platform independent at that time?
what were the platform they were running on then?

C is actually less platform independent than many other high level
languages. It demands a machine with binary arithmetic, and with
a character set closely approaching full ASCII, for example.
However these characteristics are widely available, and C has been
ported to more systems than any other language, making it the
defacto portability standard.

In terms of portability constraints on the machinery, Pascal is
probably the most portable language of all. It can function
happily on decimal oriented machinery, and the file system
characteristics are carefully abstracted, described, and
implementable.

 

[Dan Pop]

C is actually less platform independent than many other high level
languages. It demands a machine with binary arithmetic,

Merely one that can simulate it.

and with a character set closely approaching full ASCII, for example.

When did they remove trigraphs and digraphs from the language?

The C specification is merely *optimised* for platforms with binary
arithmetic (the others were dead by the time C was designed) and a
character set containing practically all the ASCII printable characters
(all character sets not satisfying this condition have become irrelevant
long ago to the world of general purpose computing).

Dan

 

[Old Wolf]

When did they remove trigraphs and digraphs from the language?

Irrelevant, only the execution character set comes under the
umbrella of portability considerations. You don't type in a
C program on your fridge..

 

[Dan Pop]

Irrelevant, only the execution character set comes under the
umbrella of portability considerations. You don't type in a
C program on your fridge..

What is the standard function for outputting a character on your fridge?

Dan

 

[Old Wolf]

What is the standard function for outputting a character on your fridge?

putchar. Of course, what the fridge does with its standard output
stream depends on the implementation; it would seem likely that
it's ignored (meaning that neither source nor execution set is a
problem in this case).

 

[Ben Pfaff]

what the fridge does with its standard output stream depends on
the implementation

Typically it leaks onto your food.

 

[Keith Thompson]

putchar. Of course, what the fridge does with its standard output
stream depends on the implementation; it would seem likely that
it's ignored (meaning that neither source nor execution set is a
problem in this case).

It's even more likely that your fridge is a freestanding
implementation (if it has a C implementation at all), and is not
required to support putchar() or anything else in <stdio.h>.

 

[Dan Pop]

putchar.

Chapter and verse, please.

Of course, what the fridge does with its standard output
stream depends on the implementation;

Where does the standard require that the fridge has a standard output
stream? Chapter and verse, please.

Dan

 

[Kenneth Brody]

Nope, it was a relatively late comer to the world of high level
programming languages.


FORTRAN was the first high level language of any relevance. It predates
C by about 15 years.

[...]

I remember reading an article in an old Datamation magazine from the early
1960's showing how a COBOL program running on two computers from different
manufacturers not only compiled with no source changes, but gave identical
results on both systems.

 

[Mabden]

fridge?

putchar. Of course, what the fridge does with its standard output
stream depends on the implementation; it would seem likely that
it's ignored (meaning that neither source nor execution set is a
problem in this case).

Of course not. The refrigerator must write in crayon on construction
paper and stick it unto itself with refrigerator magnets. Placement on
said surface is based on an AI sorting algorithm that weighs importance,
size, and cutesy-ness. Uncooked macaroni is added on especially
important messages for emphasis, as is glitter and /or lace trimming
(depends on implementation).

p.s. They *hate* the name fridge for two distinct reasons; one: there is
no D in refrigerator, and two: they are the only appliance to be
diminutived.

 

[Stan Rowlan]

Was C really the first language to be platform independent?
If yes what was the nature of other languages which were there before
C like fortran ,basic,cobol?
weren't they platform independent at that time?
what were the platform they were running on then?

greetings,
Bob

No, Bob, C is not platform independent until it cuts off the its
red-headed demonspawn: Unix. Cordially, STR

 

[Elijah Cardon]

No, Bob, C is not platform independent until it cuts off the its
red-headed demonspawn: Unix. Cordially, STR

Q1) What would "the its" mean?

Q2) There was 72. There was '89. There was '99. Will there be an '06?
Cordially, STR