From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

As I recall, the ALGOL-68 implementation done at RSRE was the first,
and came as something of a surprise to the ALGOL-68 designers. The
user guide is now available at Bitsavers <https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/royalRadarEstablishment/>.

How complete an implementation was it?
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 23.10.2025 03:09, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

As I recall, the ALGOL-68 implementation done at RSRE was the first,
and came as something of a surprise to the ALGOL-68 designers. The
user guide is now available at Bitsavers <https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/royalRadarEstablishment/>.

How complete an implementation was it?

The User Guide suggests that it was an intermediate implementation
between the first Algol 68 definition and the Revised Report. Hard
to tell [for me] whether the implementation got changed later. You
can see that the User Guide defines much of the Algol 68 repertoire
but some things are differing, like missing 'OD' in its syntax, or
the logic of expressions in some cases, or ranges of characters. It
seems alternative syntactic forms of IF or CASE are unsupported and
I also cannot find ELIF or OUSE.

But its completeness should matter mostly (only?) if you have access
to such an implementation. Have you?

For studies I'd not use a User Guide like this that doesn't reflect
the Revised Report at least.

Janis

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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 23/10/2025 04:37, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

On 23.10.2025 03:09, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

As I recall, the ALGOL-68 implementation done at RSRE was the first,

[Minor nit-pick -- the RSRE implementations were preceded by
the RRE ones -- same place, same programmers, different name.]

and came as something of a surprise to the ALGOL-68 designers. The
user guide is now available at Bitsavers
<https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/royalRadarEstablishment/>.
How complete an implementation was it?

The Wiki article on Algol 68-R gives a decent description of
the differences between 68-R, the original Algol 68, and the revised
language. The introduction to the Revised Report contains a summary
of the main changes in the revised language [many of them influenced
by practical experience with 68-R].

The User Guide suggests that it was an intermediate implementation
between the first Algol 68 definition and the Revised Report. Hard
to tell [for me] whether the implementation got changed later.

The version described in the User Guide referenced was quite
a bit different in detail from the original 1971 version.

[...] It
seems alternative syntactic forms of IF or CASE are unsupported and
I also cannot find ELIF or OUSE.

"(" for "IF", "CASE" and "BEGIN" was in 68-R. "ELIF" was "ELSF"
in 68-R and original 68. "CODE ... EDOC", perhaps unsurprisingly, never
made it to full 68.

But its completeness should matter mostly (only?) if you have access
to such an implementation. Have you?

"Everyone" has access to 68-R! See near the bottom of the Wiki
article for the GPL'ed version running on a George 3 emulator. [We had
to sign in blood for source from RSRE; obviously, the UK/NATO is no
longer quite so worried about full details of 68-R falling into foreign
hands!]

For studies I'd not use a User Guide like this that doesn't reflect
the Revised Report at least.

Unless you/Lawrence are studying the history of A68 in the '70s?
--
Andy Walker, Nottingham.
Andy's music pages: www.cuboid.me.uk/andy/Music
Composer of the day: www.cuboid.me.uk/andy/Music/Composers/Hause
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

In article <10ddrva$1g88i$1@dont-email.me>,
Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> wrote:

"(" for "IF", "CASE" and "BEGIN" was in 68-R. "ELIF" was "ELSF"
in 68-R and original 68.

Yes, see pages 21-22 of the User Guide, though they seem to be missing
from the syntax summary in Appendix 3.

The User Guide is impressively straighforward considering how
complicated Algol 68 was considered at the time.

My copy appears to be identical to the online one, but is the second
impression and slightly cheaper.

The Wikipedia page for Algol 68 references an article in this very
newsgroup by Dennis Ritchie entitled "C and Algol 68", but it appears
to have gone from the Internet Archive, no doubt thanks to Google.
Does anyone have a copy?

-- Richard
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 24.10.2025 21:50, Richard Tobin wrote:

The Wikipedia page for Algol 68 references an article in this very
newsgroup by Dennis Ritchie entitled "C and Algol 68", but it appears
to have gone from the Internet Archive, no doubt thanks to Google.
Does anyone have a copy?

Sorry, no.

But the article "The Development of the C Language" has a couple
references to Algol 68 in context of the "C" language design; https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/about/dennis-m-ritchie/chist.pdf

Janis

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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 24/10/2025 21:50, Richard Tobin wrote:

The Wikipedia page for Algol 68 references an article in this very
newsgroup by Dennis Ritchie entitled "C and Algol 68", but it appears
to have gone from the Internet Archive, no doubt thanks to Google.
Does anyone have a copy?

It's in the file comp.lang.misc.mbox.zip that you can download from https://archive.org/download/usenet-comp

--8<---
From: dmr@alice.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: C and Algol 68
Message-ID: <7997@alice.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jun 88 09:23:34 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ
Lines: 13

Practically everything ok@quintus cites as proving that C does not
descend from Algol 68 is true, yet there was influence, much of
it so subtle that it is hard to recover even when I think hard.
In particular, the union type (a late addition to C) does owe to A68,
not in any details, but in the idea of having such a type at all.
More deeply, the type structure in general and even, in some strange
way, the declaration syntax (the type-constructor part) was inspired by A68. And yes, of course, "long".

Mostly, of course, C is Thompsonized BCPL (that is, B) with types.
You don't have to look too hard to find PL/1 and Fortran, either.

Dennis Ritchie
--8<--

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