BLISS Language Guide

This document is a combined tutorial and reference manual for the BLISS programming language, covering the BLISS-16, BLISS-32, and BLISS-36 dialects. It is intended for experienced system programmers who need to build system software (such as operating systems, compilers, or real-time processors) that is close to the hardware and requires high efficiency. The manual provides a comprehensive description of the language's syntax and semantics, including its unique expression-based structure, memory addressing capabilities, and macro facilities. It also details the BLISS programming system components—the compiler, linker, and associated utilities—and explains how to achieve program transportability across different target systems (PDP-11, VAX-11, DECsystem-10, and DECSYSTEM-20). The document further covers data declarations, structure definitions, condition handling, and linkage declarations.