BCPLKIT README

This is an x86 (IA-32) port of an old BCPL compiler kit (around 1980)
from the Tripos Research Group at Cambridge University.

BCPL was a very popular systems programming language during the 1960s
and 1970s.  At Bells Labs in the Sixties, about the time of the birth
of UNIX, BCPL directly inspired the computer language B and had a big
influence on the development of C.

The compiler available here is very close to that featured in the book,
_BCPL -- the language and its compiler_ by Martin Richards and Colin
Whitby-Stevens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).

The present port includes both an INTCODE interpreter and an INTCODE
to x86 native code generator.  A few features have been added to the
compiler to make it easier to use -- it looks for header files in a
standard location, for instance -- and additional language feature
support allows programs to handle I/O operations to named files, to
accept command line arguments, and other useful things.

The compiler driver accepts a -O option, and will attempt to invoke
copt, the retargetable peephole optimizer by Chris Fraser.  A "rules"
file for use with copt is supplied.

A language manual forms part of the documentation.  There is other
documentation relating to implementation details.

Martin Richards, the creator of BCPL, has a home page at

    http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mr10/

and supplies a current BCPL compiler (considerably more sophisticated
than this classic early implementation).  He also has BCPL programs and
archive material available.

The web page for this port is

    http://www.nordier.com/software/bcplkit.html

Robert Nordier
www.nordier.com
