Building Block style programming Book

Hello to all,

Here is my situation. Some time in the mid-80's I stumbled across a small white programming book - can't remember the name but it was unique in that it started right out giving instructions on creating building blocks in code as a foundation for a complete system. The book was all based on C ( or pascal ) but pretty sure it was ansi C.

It began with the most rudimentary functions - like how to read a byte from the terminal and then built on that foundation to allow you to build a complete library of functions for larger systems. I have been going crazy trying to find it again as it was in an office where I worked for a short time.

I am hoping that one of you has seen this book and can give me the isbn number or site where I might find it again. Sorry that I am a bit vague on this but I am really struggling with a memory lapse on this.

Thanks to any and all who respond

Are you talking about The C Programming Language by Brian W. Kernighan & Dennis M. Ritchie?

1st Edition: ISBN 0131101633

2nd Edition: ISBN 0131103628

Thanks for the response - no that's not it - I have that one. It goes over the specific forms of the language. The one I am trying to find started out with - here is a function to just read bytes from the terminal then built from there until you had a whole library of functions to build bigger systems.

It was kind of "learn-while-building" tinker-toy approach.