History of C programming In the early days of computing, programmers used a variety of different programming languages to create software for different computer systems.

This is why I’ve long argued that BASIC is the most consequential language in the history of computing. It’s a language for noobs, sure, but back then most everyone was a noob.

The verbose programming language felt like a universal form of communication—until it didn’t.

The PDP-11 helped birth the UNIX operating system and the C programming language. It would also greatly influence the next generation of computer architectures.