Who invented the C software programming language?

Ritchie began working at Bell Laboratories in 1968, after graduating from Harvard University. There he worked with Ken Thompson, born in 1943, to create the UNIX operating system. At that time Bell Laboratories used a programming language called "B". This programming language was used in the preparation of the UNIX operating system. Ritchie worked on this operating system and created the 'C' programming language, in his own words, "adding data types and a new syntax to Thompson's B language."

Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – c. October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist. He is most well-known for creating the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system and B programming language. Ritchie was found dead on October 12, 2011, at the age of 70 at his home in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, where he lived alone.

The C programming language was developed for use with the UNIX operating system. This new language is also known for being general purpose and especially portable from one computer type to another. At that time, Ritchie and Thompson were working on language B on the PDP-7 computer. When Bell Labs purchased a newer computer model, the PDP-11, the team wanted to upgrade to a more powerful computer. B's inability to take advantage of the new features that came with the PDP-11 prompted Ritchie to create one of the first versions of C. Thanks to the C programming language, Ritchie rewrote their UNIX operating system so that it could be transferred to the PDP-11 computer.

In this way, the bulky computer, the PDP-11, became the first computer to use the C programming language, together with a tape drive. The flexibility and simplicity of this language is the sole reason why it is still used in modern personal computers and by real programmers, even decades after its invention. Ritchie and Thompson were awarded the United States National Medal of Technology by then-US President Bill Clinton in 1999 for their work on UNIX and C.

What Position Was IT and Technology Before Dennis Ritchie?

In the past, each computer company had its own operating system. These firms included Burroughs, Sperry Univac, Control Data Corporation, Honeywell, NCR, and IBM. Digital Equipment was nascent, HP was known as a manufacturer of engineering tools.

Is it Microsoft? Microsoft's operating system at that time was single-user. It was capable of performing only one operation at a time.

If we look at the programming languages, different languages such as Fortran, RPG, COBOL, Basic, PL 1, Ada were running on various computers (a computer specific to each programming language). So there was no standardization.