[abbreviation, Basic Combined Programming Language
) A
programming language developed by Martin Richards in Cambridge in 1967. It
is remarkable for its rich syntax, small size of compiler (it can be run in
16k) and extreme portability. It reached break-even point at a very early
stage, and was the language in which the original hello world program was written. It has been ported to so many
different systems that its creator confesses to having lost count. It has
only one data type (a machine word) which can be used as an integer, a
character, a floating point number, a pointer, or almost anything else,
depending on context. BCPL was a precursor of C, which inherited some of
its features.