Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 5: Artist-Programmer Era (1970s)

1979

C++ Developed by Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Laboratories

Invention · Top Moment

Original Bell Laboratories report cover, Classes: An Abstract Data Type Facility for the C Language.
Bjarne Stroustrup’s January 19, 1980 Bell Laboratories report on C with Classes, the language project begun in 1979 that became C++. Bjarne Stroustrup / Bell Laboratories. Original technical memorandum TM-80-1273-2; scan: The Unix Heritage Society, linked by Computer History Museum. Image source.

One of the most popular programming languages of the 1990s and still widely used today, C++ began in 1979 with Bjarne Stroustrup’s arrival at the “1127 Computing Science Research Center of AT&T Bell Laboratories.” After five years, the first C++ language reference manual was internally published in 1984 and commercially released in 1985.

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.

Sources

People

Bjarne Stroustrup

Movements

computer art

Filed under

Technologies
C++, computer art, programming
People
Bjarne Stroustrup
Organisations
AT&T, Bell Labs

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