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From: John Reagan <johnrreagan@earthlink.net>
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: New VSI blog post
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2024 12:11:22 -0400
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On 8/1/2024 7:16 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 7/31/2024 11:20 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> On Wed, 31 Jul 2024 22:46:18 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 7/31/2024 10:38 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>> Been there, done that sort of thing, before your time (early 1990s).
>>>
>>> Early 90's before John's time????
>>
>> When did DEC embrace ANSI C?
> 
> The standard happened in 1989 (ANSI) and 1990 (ISO).
> 
> I am not sure when DEC C 4.0 shipped, but given that
> VAX C never existed on Alpha, then together with the first
> VMS Alpha release in 1992 seems like a good guess.
> 
> And it takes time to implement a new compiler, so
> it seems likely that the ink on the printed copy
> of the standard was barely dry before management at
> DEC said go.
> 
> But I don't think John did C back then - as I recall
> it was:
>    Pascal - Reagan
>    Fortran - Lionel
>    C - Vogel
> 
> Arne
> 
> 
> 
I started with Digital in August 1983 to work on Pascal.  There were 
others as well (Steve Hobbs, Joyce Spencer, John Yates, others) but I 
became the project leader within a few years and was the public facing 
Pascal person (and rep to the Pascal Standards Committee).  I think the 
largest we ever got on Pascal was 6 or 7 people.

For Fortran, Steve was the RTL author (he also wrote the Pascal RTL as 
well).  There have been many names associated with the Fortran compiler 
including Richard Grove and Stan Whitlock to name a few.  The Fortran 
team was almost always the largest compiler project in the group.

For C, again many names over the years and the fact that the VAX C 
compiler started with Dave Cutler, Don MacLaren, Jay Palmer, and others. 
  Ed Vogel worked on many compilers including lots of time with BASIC. 
Names you would also see in "public" spaces include Rich Peterson.  The 
C team was quite large as well.  I'd have to go back and do some 
research on ANSI C considerations.  There are some archive documents on 
bitsavers if you dig deep enough.