The last history people here gave me had him describing the joy of programming in the safe, fast Oberon-2. And wanting to re-create that with the new language. Resulting language is very Wirth-like in style, esp simplicity, compile speed focus, and safety. Modified with C syntax, concurrency from Limbo, and I dont recall what else. Clearly way closer to Oberon-2 or Modula's than to BCPL like C copied/extended.

The method definition syntax, package model and unsafe package are taken from Oberon-2.

You missed that Robert Griesemer is also part of the Go team.

I didn't miss that at all. According to Pike, it was actually Griesemer's idea to start with C.

Wasn't aware of it.

In any case, my view is a bit different, I see Go as a mix of an AOT version of Limbo mixed with bits of Oberon-2.

I definitely "feel" the Limbo influence, but I've not worked with Oberon-2 (only the original Oberon, and only a bit), so I didn't pick up on it. I do "feel" the C influence as well, though.