The Curious History of the C Programming Language: From Space Travel to Modern Computing

You might not observe the C programming language everywhere, but it is invisibly everywhere. When you start your car, your car’s mainboard probably uses C to talk to its different components. When you use your phone, whether iOS or Android, the highly kernel of the operating system is written in C. You can’t unsee C.

The Origins at Bell Labs

The story of C begins at Bell Labs in New Jersey, a research and development powerhouse founded by Alexander Graham Bell and, at the time, owned by AT&T.¹ This environment, with its substantial budget and freedom for experimentation, led to groundbreaking inventions like the transistor, the laser, and the solar cell. The C language was another product of this innovative atmosphere.

From BCPL to B

Before C, there was B. In 1969, Ken Thompson, a researcher at Bell Labs, was working on a complex operating system project called Multics. When that project was cancelled, Thompson wanted to create a game called Space Travel on a PDP-7 computer.¹ Writing an operating system in assembly code was difficult, so he needed a higher-level language. The existing option, BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language), was too large for the PDP-7’s limited memory. Thompson stripped down BCPL to its essentials, creating the language B.

The Rise of C: Addressing B’s Limitations

While B worked for the PDP-7, it proved inefficient when Bell Labs upgraded to the PDP-11. B was a typeless language, which slowed down the new hardware. Dennis Ritchie, collaborating with Thompson, recognized this limitation and spent two years overhauling B.¹ His key innovation was the introduction of a type system, defining data types like ‘char’ for characters and ‘int’ for integers, allowing for more efficient memory usage.

Naming the Language: From “New B” to C

Initially referred to as “New B,” the language evolved into something distinct and powerful enough to warrant its own name. Following the logical progression from B, Ritchie and Thompson named it C.¹

C and the Unix Revolution

In 1973, Ritchie and Thompson rewrote the core of the Unix operating system in C.¹ This was a significant departure from the traditional practice of writing operating systems in assembly code, as C proved to be both fast and portable.

The Legacy Continues: C++ and Beyond

By the late 1970s, C had become dominant. However, as programs grew more complex, limitations emerged. Bjarne Stroustrup, also at Bell Labs, sought to add object-oriented programming features to C. This led to the creation of C++, named as a playful increment of C (C++ means incrementing C by one).¹

The Arrival of D

Years later, in 2001, Walter Bright created the D programming language, aiming for the power of C with a modern, safer design.⁴ While D offered improvements in memory management and safety, it struggled to gain widespread adoption, overshadowed by established languages like Java and C#. Rust, a later language also focused on memory safety, ultimately gained more traction.

C’s Enduring Influence

Today, C remains foundational to modern computing. Even newer languages like Python and JavaScript often rely on C for their underlying implementations.⁴ C’s journey, from a solution for a simple space game to the bedrock of countless systems, is a testament to its enduring power and elegance.