Whitesmiths Ltd. was a software company based in Westford, Massachusetts

Westford, Massachusetts

Westford is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 21,951 at the 2010 census.-History:Originally a part of neighboring Chelmsford, West Chelmsford soon grew large enough to sustain its own governance, and was officially incorporated as Westford on September 23,...

. It sold a Unix-like

Unix-like

A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....

 operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 called Idris

Idris (operating system)

Idris is a multi-tasking, Unix-like, multi-user, real-time operating system released by Whitesmiths, of Westford, Massachusetts. The product was commercially available from 1979 through 1988.-Background:...

, as well as the first commercial C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

 compiler

Compiler

A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...

. The Whitesmiths compiler, written for the PDP-11

PDP-11

The PDP-11 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a succession of products in the PDP series. The PDP-11 replaced the PDP-8 in many real-time applications, although both product lines lived in parallel for more than 10 years...

, was released in 1978 and compiled a version of C similar to that accepted by Version 6 Unix

Version 6 Unix

Sixth Edition Unix, also called Version 6 Unix or just V6, was the first version of the Unix operating system to see wide release outside Bell Labs. It was released in May 1975 and, like its direct predecessor, targeted the DEC PDP-11 family of minicomputers...

 (Dennis Ritchie

Dennis Ritchie

Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie , was an American computer scientist who "helped shape the digital era." He created the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the UNIX operating system...

's original C compiler).
It was an entirely new implementation, borrowing no code from Unix. Today, it is mainly remembered for lending its name to a peculiar indentation style, originally used in the code examples which accompanied it. Whitesmith's first customer for their C compiler was Fischer & Porter, a process control company then located in Warminster Pennsylvania.

In 1983 Whitesmiths formed a technical and business alliance with France-based COSMIC Software. At that time, Whitesmiths published 16-bit

16-bit

-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...

 compilers for machines like PDP-11

PDP-11

The PDP-11 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a succession of products in the PDP series. The PDP-11 replaced the PDP-8 in many real-time applications, although both product lines lived in parallel for more than 10 years...

 while COSMIC published 8-bit

8-bit

The first widely adopted 8-bit microprocessor was the Intel 8080, being used in many hobbyist computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, often running the CP/M operating system. The Zilog Z80 and the Motorola 6800 were also used in similar computers...

 compilers for Intel and Motorola

Motorola

Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

 CPUs. This technology alliance improved compilers for both markets. Whitesmiths was actively involved in developing the original ANSI C

ANSI C

ANSI C refers to the family of successive standards published by the American National Standards Institute for the C programming language. Software developers writing in C are encouraged to conform to the standards, as doing so aids portability between compilers.-History and outlook:The first...

 standard supplying several members to the standards committee and hosting some technical sessions. They were one of the first suppliers of an ANSI C

ANSI C

ANSI C refers to the family of successive standards published by the American National Standards Institute for the C programming language. Software developers writing in C are encouraged to conform to the standards, as doing so aids portability between compilers.-History and outlook:The first...

 compliant compiler.

The company's president from 1978 to 1988 was P. J. Plauger

P. J. Plauger

P. J. Plauger is an author and entrepreneur.He has written and co-written articles and books about programming style, software tools, and the C programming language....

. Whitesmiths merged with Intermetrics

Intermetrics

Intermetrics, Inc. was a software company founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1969 by several veterans of M.I.T.'s Instrumentation Laboratory who had worked on the software for NASA's Apollo Program including the Apollo Guidance Computer....

 in December 1988, leading to further M&A.