In the 1960s systems programming tended to be implemented using only assembly-level languages. This was because existing higher level languages did not support the low level facilities required by systems programmers. Consequently systems programs were lengthy, tedious, error prone, non portable and difficult to maintain. To address this problem specialised systems programming languages were developed. In the mid 1960s there was a great proliferation of these. BCPL and Coral'66, introduced in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were the most popular systems languages in the UK. Particularly the latter which was supported by the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD). BCPL eventually evolved in to C, which is currently the most widely used systems programming language.
Created and maintained by Frans Coenen. Last updated 03 July 2001