from Hacker News

First C compiler source code from 1972

by cft on 3/27/25, 2:37 AM with 13 comments

• by ytch on 3/27/25, 3:44 AM

  Dupe of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43433030

• by cpr on 3/27/25, 3:37 AM

  Wow, that brings back memories!

  First saw the C compiler sources on Geoff Steckel (local guru)'s desk around 1973 at the Harvard graduate computing center, and was absolutely floored at this fascinating-looking language. (Harvard got the first Unix tapes outside of Bell Labs; not sure of the connection there.)

  All upper-case, of course, as the DEC lineprinters didn't have lower case yet. Real upper case was struck-through upper.

• by zahlman on 3/27/25, 4:07 AM

  > These are not capable of being compiled today with modern c compilers like gcc

  Is that only because it includes PDP-11 assembly code, or has the language changed too much?

• by qq66 on 3/27/25, 8:15 AM

  How was the first C compiler written in C?

• by webprofusion on 3/27/25, 4:33 AM

  It's cool but it's not getting any more newsworthy. Submitted 9 times to HN so far since 2013.