History of C Language

The C language originated in the early 1970s when Dennis Ritchie worked on developing the Unix operating system at Bell Labs. C evolved from an earlier language called B, which was developed by Ken Thompson as a simplified version of BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language).

• Early 1970s: Dennis Ritchie developed C while working on the Unix operating system.
• 1978: The first edition of the book “The C Programming Language” by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, also known as K&R C, was published.
• 1989: ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standardized the C language, and this version became known as ANSI C.
• 1999: A newer version of C, known as C99, was introduced, adding new features like inline functions, variable-length arrays, and more.
• 2011: The latest revision, C11, introduced multi-threading support and other modern features.

Timeline Overview:

• 1969: Development of Unix in assembly language.
• Early 1970s: C language created for re-writing Unix.
• 1973: Unix rewritten in C, demonstrating the language’s power.
• 1989: ANSI C became the standard.
• 1999: C99 standard introduced.
• 2011: C11 standard released.