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From: Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Block Comments Or Rest-Of-Line Comments?
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2024 06:27:23 -0700
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cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) writes:

> In article <86r0g3liii.fsf@linuxsc.com>,
> Tim Rentsch  <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> wrote:
>
>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>
>>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>>>
>>>> The original comment delimiters in C were copied from PL/I:  everything
>>>
>>> Cite?
>>
>> Seen in the B language manual:
>>
>>    Comments are delimited as in PL/I by /* and */.
>>
>> https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/kbman.html
>>
>> Note that this style of commenting was not present in
>> B's precursor language, BCPL.
>
> It would be appropriate to qualify this statement with some kind
> of timeframe as BCPL is still used (albeit not widely, I assume).

The PL/I style of commenting was not present in BCPL at the time B
was being defined.  My source is MIT Project Mac Memorandum-M-352
dated July 21, 1967.  I expect this document can be found on the
net but I don't have a link for it.