AFAIK ALGOL 68 was garbage collected and so where many safe languages of that period, so no, the techniques to prevent memory safety issues without garbage collection (affine and linear types, region systems, move semantics) where only implemented in pratical languages in the last 20 years (ATS, Cyclone, Rust). Rust is possibly the first non-GC&#x27;ed safe language that seems to have a chance to reach mainstream adoption.<p>So, while it is true that the success of C primarily derives from it being used to implement UNIX, it is also true that for a long time (and, arguably, still today), GC&#x27;ed languages where perceived to be inadequate for system programming.