C programming language was created by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs in the early 1970s. Ritchie developed C as an evolution of an earlier language called “B,” which was itself based on the even earlier language BCPL. B was used to develop the first version of the Unix operating system, which was written on a DEC PDP-11 minicomputer.
Ritchie wanted to create a language that was easier to use and more powerful than B, but that was still low-level enough to be used for systems programming. The result was C, which was first released in 1972.
One of the key features of C was its ability to access hardware directly, which made it ideal for systems programming. C also introduced many features that are still widely used in programming languages today, such as the use of header files to define functions and the use of pointers to manipulate data.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the popularity of C grew rapidly, particularly in the Unix community. C was used to develop many of the core Unix utilities and applications, as well as the operating system itself.
In the 1980s, the development of the ANSI C standard helped to solidify the language’s popularity and standardize its syntax. Today, C remains an important language for systems programming and is widely used in embedded systems, device drivers, and other low-level software.