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Compiling to bytecode is almost a decade older than BCPL, was the way to go at Xerox PARC and most mainframes that survive to this day.


From what I can tell, Xerox PARC didn't exist until 1970 and apparently used Smalltalk, which was after BCPL in 1967. I don't doubt you're correct, so do you have any links for earlier bytecode examples?


Burroughs Large Systems, released into the market in 1961, nowadays sold as Unisys ClearPath MCP mainframes.

Xerox PARC had Smalltalk, Mesa (later Mesa/Cedar) and Interlisp-D.

The platforms would first load the respective microcode into the CPU for the bytecodes used by the desired workstation environment.

Initially Xerox PARC made use of BCPL, but quickly they realised it wasn't the best way to write systems software and created Mesa to replace it.

After all, BCPL was intended to bootstrap CPL, not to write fully systems with it.

Other 60's computer companies were making use of either Algol or PL/I dialects, all the way up to the 80's.

Lots of juice papers at Bitsavers.




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