Skip to main content
Retrocomputing

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

Required fields*

10
  • 3
    Welcome. Some quibbling, because that is what we do here. Translators of some assembly languages were called compilers (PLAN, as in my recent answer; also the KDF9 Usercode compiler). Compilers are not necessarily large, it depends on the language. And C was only the cause of the move from assembly programming if you were not plugged in to Wulf's work on BLISS - indeed, I've seen a remark (somewhere! sorry) from Ritchie that if DEC would have let him have a BLISS compiler, he wouldn't have needed to invent C. But maybe the 'largely' part is exculpation for this last. Commented Jan 22 at 18:16
  • 2
    @Dave Multics used PL/I for systems programing before C existed. Commented Jan 22 at 19:28
  • 3
    @JohnDoty - which underscores my point about C not being the 'prime mover' away from assembly languages. Also of note - the B5500 and 'extended Algol'. Commented Jan 22 at 19:37
  • @dave - Good point about PLAN and KDF9. I forgot to include a note about how terminology varies, and have added it now. The actual question is about how assembly/assembers came to be called that. I rambled a bit and opened the door to your point about Bliss by briefly mentioning C in a parenthetical aside. It was off-topic for the question and this answer, so I have now deleted it. Commented Jan 26 at 17:41
  • 1
    Tools, schmools. All you need is assembler, task builder, and the BOOt command :-) Well, and a good core dump analyzer. Commented Jan 27 at 2:10