From Newsgroup: comp.answers

Archive-name: apl-faq
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: Fri Sep 19 18:41:33 PDT 2003

APL Frequently Asked Questions (well some, anyway)
Maintained by S.W. Sirlin
Thanks to the many people who have contributed to this list.

9/19/2003 New in this version: minor updates

First, what is APL?
APL is the first array processing language (that I know of anyway).
The following was extracted from http://www.acm.org/sigapl/whyapl.htm.

The language was invented by Kenneth E. Iverson while at Harvard
University. The language, originally titled "Iverson Notation", was
designed to overcome the inherent ambiguities and points of confusion
found when dealing with standard mathematical notation. It was later
described in 1962 in a book simply titled "A Programming Language"
(hence APL). Towards the end of the sixties, largely through the
efforts of IBM, the computer community gained its first exposure to
APL. Iverson received the Turing Award in 1980 for this work.

APL is a user-oriented notation, particularly well suited for
communication from people to other people or to computers. The
notation consists of a set of symbols (letters, numbers, punctuation,
algebra, and special shapes), with a very simple set of rules (syntax)
for putting them together to describe the processing of data. The
data can be either numeric or literal (which includes words and text
handling).

In fact there are about a hundred different "primitive
(i.e. fundamental to APL) operations which can be performed. This can
be compared to having a calculator with over 100 different function
keys.

Following the old Chinese proverb that a picture is worth a thousand
words, the APL symbol set is the equivalent of many words in
describing algorithms or procedures. Often one or a few APL symbols
(function) can have the same result as several lines of code in
another computer language or of several paragraphs in English.
...See http://www.acm.org/sigapl/whyapl.htm
for the rest of the article, or check out some of the web links or
books listed below for more information.



The questions I'm answering here are:
1. Where can I find APL for machine X?
2. How do I use APL on an XX terminal connected to machine YY?
3. What about APL keyboards/stickers?
4. Can I compile APL?
5. What tools exist for APL?
6. Can I get an APL font for X?
7. What information exists online about APL?
8. How do I get book Y?
9. What good APL books exist?
10. What user groups exist?
11. What's the latest APL conference?
12. How do I pass APL functions from one APL to another?
13. How do I write APL using only ASCII?
14. Where can I find APL employment information?

The primary format for this faq is html. I use lex and aplc to convert
this to a text version that is autoposted to the newsgroup.
For the (text) latest version available, see ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/
(where all the autoposted faq's are archived), in particular ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/comp.lang.apl/APL_language_FAQ.
Another good place for faq archives is http://www.faqs.org/,
with this faq at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/apl-faq/.
The latest html version of this faq is at http://home.earthlink.net/~swsirlin/apl.faq.html



(1) Q: Where can I find APL for machine X?
A: APL SOURCES

A+ [1/2002]
A+ is an APL dialect available (as source) under the GNU GPL for
various Unix, including Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD,
developed at Morgan Stanley by Arthur Whitney et al.
http://www.aplusdev.org
http://sourceforge.net/
ftp://free1.d13.com/pub/aplusdev/
The BAA has had some success in porting to Windows, see
http://www.vector.org.uk/aflat

APL\11
APL\11 is a freely available APL interpreter for UNIX (C),
thanks to Michael Cain. Currently has some bugs.
See also openAPL below. Port to FreeBSD available
(email: sam@kalessin.jpl.nasa.gov)
ftp://archive.uwaterloo.ca/languages/apl/apl-11
email: mcain@advtech.uswest.com.

APL2000
APL+DOS, APL+UNIX, APL+Win (for Windows 3.1, NT, 95),
APL+Link, APL+Link Pro,
APLSE for DOS (freeware, no printed documentation or support)
(formerly sold by Manugistics/STSC):
Cognos, Inc.
6610 Rockledge Drive, Suite 502,
Bethesda Maryland USA 20817
Main Phone: (301) 564-5020
Sales Phone: 609-436-8717 Sales Fax: 609-734-0717
Support Phone: 301-564-5027 Support Fax: 301-564-5021
Consulting Services Phone: 609-436-8702
email: sales@apl2000.com
support@apl2000.com
consult@apl2000.com
http://www.APL2000.com
Canadian Distributor:
APL Borealis Inc.
381 Manor Road East
Toronto, Ontario M4S 1S7, Canada
Phone: (416) 457-7828, Fax: (416) 482-6582
email: info@aplborealis.com
http://www.aplborealis.com
UK Distributor [12/01]
APL Systems IDC SL
Alfredo Marquerie, 12 - 2 F
28034 Madrid, Spain
Phone: +34 91 730 7008 Office, +34 60 680 5949 Mobile
Fax: +1 775 743 6131
email: uksales@apl2000.net,
uksupport@apl2000.net


APLX (was APL.68000)[2/2003]
APLX for Windows, Mac OS (including Mac OS X), Linux and AIX
(APL.6800 ran on Atari ST, IBM RS/6000, Mac level I/II,
add in board for IBM pc's, PowerMac, Amiga). APLX for Linux is
free for non-commercial use.
In North America:
Spencer Organization
24 Wampum Road
Park ridge, NJ USA 07656
Phone: +1-201-307-9099, Fax: +1-201-307-9404
For the rest of the world:
MicroAPL Limited
South Bank Technopark
90 London Road,
London UK SE1 6LN
Phone: +44-171-922-8866 Fax: +44-171-928-1006
email: microapl@microapl.demon.co.uk
email: microapl@applelink.apple.com
WWW: http://www.microapl.co.uk

APL92
APL92 (Mac, system 7.1), older APL90:
ftp://ftp.emse.fr/pub/lang/apl/
Jean-Jacques Girardot
School Mines
St-Etienne, France
email: girardot@cambur.emse.fr

APLSE
APLSE/LRNAPLSE (APL*PLUS v10 freeware, PCDOS, W95/98):

APLSE is a version of Manugistics/STSC's PC APL, available
with very little documentation. LRNAPLSE is a package
including APLSE, on-screen lessons (with additional
documentation), and the APL*PLUS Demo (more documentation).
Ask for a catalog of APL books and software from Dick Holt, dick_holt@email.com

Fonts under W95, WNT, (WME?) are troublesome. Here is some
information from Allan Zenth (allan.zenth@tryg.dk):
I tried to use APL-PLUS v.10 (essentially the same as APL SE) under Windows
95 and Windows NT. I don't know about Windows ME.
First the bad things: You cannot work in a window with symbols (only
full-screen) and using a code-page for symbols is not possible in NT.
The difficult thing is to have a stable full-screen situation and the most
difficult was NT.
1) Make a short-cut on the screen to the apl.exe file. Go into the
properties (right-click on the icon).
2) On the program-page refer to the bat-file in the command-line field an
set run to maximized
3) On the memory-page I use 1MB in EMS, XMS & DPMI - perhabs not important
4) On the screen-page set full-screen
5) On the misc-page remove the check-mark for Ctrl+Esc - Important to have
in APL
6) Go into C:\WinNT\Pif and make sure, that you have the same short-cut
here
7) Here should also be a short-cut for your font.com:
7a) On the program page refer to the file itself on the command-line, set
run to maximized and remove the mark in "close on exit" (important!!)
7b) The same alterations on the other pages as above.
8) If you use aplprint.com for function-printout it should be treated as
font.com
Try to use this method in Windows ME - it might be the way out.

APL*PLUS II/VMS, Statgraphics
This was distributed by Manugistics (formerly STSC) but now has
been taken over by APL2000 (above).
Manugistics
2115 East Jefferson St.
Rockville, Maryland, USA 20852
Phone: 800-592-0050, 301-984-5000, 301-984-5412, 301-984-5123
Fax: 301-984-5094
email: support: answer@manu.com
international: intl@manu.com
BBS: 301-984-5222

APROL
APROL (Scheme/J mix):
For information (7/15/98):
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~jhowland/aprol.paper.ps
email: jhowland@ariel.cs.trinity.edu

CAPLIB2
CAPLIB2 (Linux, DOS, HPUX, can be ported to other Unix) GPL interpreter, C library
Thomas Glen Smith
3154 W. Shady Lane
Neenah, WI
email: 76207.3343@CompuServe.com
ftp://archive.uwaterloo.ca/languages/apl/CAP/
Rainer J. H. Brandt succeeded in geting CAPLIB2 to compile under NetBSD and Solaris; see
http://www.ph-cip.uni-koeln.de/~rbrandt/apl/[broken?9/18/2003]
email: rbrandt@ph-cip.uni-koeln.de

D4 [8/2000]
D4 (IBM PC, Windows, Linux). Unix like shell for windows
The shell is writen in D4, a dialect of APL
http://www.d4maths.lowtech.org
For more information contact the author Tony Goddard email:cat@animal.u-net.com

DEC
DEC (VAX APL V4.0):
Digital Equipment Corp.
Maynard, MASS, USA

Dyalog APL [5/2003]
Dyalog APL (Win 95/98/ME/2000/XP, Unix/Motif, Windows 3.x, PocketPC 2002):
Source:
Dyadic Systems Ltd.
Riverside View, Basing Road, Old Basing, Basingstoke
Hampshire RG24 7AL, UK
Phone: 011-44-(1256) 811125, Fax: (1256) 811130
email : support@dyadic.com
CompuServe: 100136,1473
http://www.dyadic.com
US Distributor:
Beautiful Systems Inc.
P.O. Box 2235
Jenkintown, PA 19046 USA
Phone: (215) 635-0375, Fax: (215) 635-9212
email: info@beautifulsystems.com
Canadian Distributors:
APL Borealis Inc.
381 Manor Road East
Toronto, Ontario M4S 1S7, Canada
Phone: (416) 457-7828, Fax: (416) 482-6582
email: info@aplborealis.com
http://www.aplborealis.com
Strand Software, Toronto
Finnish Distributor:
Dinosoft Oy
Lonnrotinkatu 21 C
00120 HELSINKI, Finland
Phone: +358 9 70028820, Fax: +358 9 70028824
email: dinosoft@dinosoft.fi
http://www.dinosoft.fi/
German Distributor [4/28/2003]
ubJL GmbH (formerly APL Software Team)
Thusneldastr. 22
90482 Nrnberg
Phone: +49 911 482512, Fax: +49 911 482518
http://www.aplteam.de
FreeAPL
IBM PC, MS Windows, version of APL\11
Tauno Ylinen, email:
tylinen@mits.mdata.fi
http://www.pyr.fi/apl/index.htm
Glee
Glee is an APL descendent, for MS Windows
http://withglee.com/
I-APL
IBM PC, Mac, some other PCs (free*):
In the US (may require lots of patience):
Edward M. Cherlin
Co-Chairman, I-APL Limited
6611 Linville Drive
Weed, California, USA 96094-9763
Phone: (916) 938-4684, Fax: 916/938-3229
email: Cherlin@snowcrest.net


In the UK:
Anthony Camacho
Co-Chairman, I-APL Limited
11 Auburn Road
Redland
Bristol BS6 6LS UK

IBM APL2 [05/02]
APL2 for Windows, AIX, Linux, Solaris and Mainframes
APL Products and Services
IBM Silicon Valley Lab, Dept. H36/F40
555 Bailey Avenue
San Jose, California 95141, USA
Phone: 408-463-APL2 (408-463-2752), FAX: 408-463-4488
email: apl2@vnet.ibm.com
news://news.software.ibm.com/ibm.software.apl
http://www.ibm.com/software/ad/apl
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com
IBM support site. Look in /ps/products/apl2
Products:
From 1-800-IBM-CALL or ibm.com
Workstation APL2 Version 2 (Windows, AIX, Linux, Solaris) is
IBM Program Product Number 5724-B74, Part Number 45P7514
APL2 Version 2 (CMS, TSO) is Program Number 5688-228
APL2 Application Environment for CMS/TSO is Program Number
5688-229

J & APLIWIN
J (for DOS, Linux, Windows, Mac, RS/6000, Sun) & APLIWIN (for Windows),
Produced by:
Jsoftware Inc.
19235 Covington Court
Shorewood, MN 55331, USA
http://www.jsoftware.com
email: info@jsoftware.com

K
K, Kdb; an APL derivative for Solaris, Linux, Windows;
trial version available
Kx Systems
http://www.kx.com

MacAPL
Macs (?) version 2.11 (I don't know much about this yet)
Michael C. O'Connor
Leptonic Systems Co.
405 Tarrytown Rd., White Plains, NY 10607
Phone: (914) 682-0377
version 1.13
ftp://ftp.uwtc.washington.edu/pub/Mac/Programming/Languages/
(no longer: ftp://ftp.ens.fr/pub/mac/hqx/ )

openAPL
New (11/98) version of apl\11 (above). Alpha release, under
GPL (free source). Ported to Linux/X11
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/devel/lang/apl
Branko Bratkovic, South Australia.
email to branko at senet dot com dot au

SHARP APL
SHARP APL (MVS, AIX, SunOS, Solaris, Linux [1/02])
Sharp APL for Linux is free for personal use; other products are
Viewpoint, LOGOS, Mailbox
Soliton Associates Limited (Formerly I. P. Sharp Associates)
44 Victoria St, Suite 2100
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5C 1Y2
Phone: (416) 364-9355 Fax: (416) 364-6159
email: sales@Soliton.COM
http://www.soliton.com
Soliton Associates, Inc.
1100 University Ave., Suite 111
Rochester, NY 14607
USA
Phone: (716) 256-6466, Fax: (716) 256-6469
Soliton Associates Limited
Havsgaardsvej 4
2900 Hellerup
Copenhagen, Denmark
Phone: +45 2621 6099, Fax: +45 3940 1641
email: benoit_paquin@soliton.com
Q'Nial
NIAL Systems Limited
366 King Street East
Suite 540
Kingston, Ontario
K7K 6Y3
http://www.nial.com/[?dead 8/2/2000]
email: info@nial.com




(2) Q: How do I use APL on an XX terminal connected to machine YY?
A: Terminal Emulation

Apex Computer Specialists
APL Key Boards and key caps for MG800/T7000 terminals, for WICAT/MCS
systems, as well as terminal with both the ASCII and APL character
codes.
Bert Arias
Apex Computer Specialists, Inc.
1502 West 400 South, Suite #2
Orem, UT 84058-5100
Phone 888-887-2739, Ext. 3357
Int.l 1-801-223-3357
Fax 801-223-9955
e-mail: barias@apexcs.com

Chameleon
Chameleon TN3270 for Windows, networks, IBM 3179G and 3192G emulation,
SAA, APA graphics.
NetManage
10725 De Anza Blvd., Cupertino, CA 95014, U.S.A.
Phone: 408/973-7171
Fax: 408/257-6405
email: Donna@NetManage.com

EXTRA!
EXTRA! Extended for DOS or EXTRA! for Windows.
Includes APL2 character set in both. DOS product works under Windows.
Attachmate Corporation
13231 S.E. 36th Street
Bellevue, Washington 98006 USA
tel. (800) 426-6283
(206) 644-4010 in Washington State

IBM Terminal Emulator
IBM Terminal Emulators with APL Support:
AIX: AIX X-Windows 3270 Emulator/6000 (X3270) Program Number 5765-011
DOS/Windows: PC/3270 Version 3, Version 4 9/30
OS2 Extended Services Communications Manager:
Includes the CMAPL Application Aid. Requires APAR fixes
after the Graphics Engine CSD is installed.
OS2 Communications Manager/2 (CM/2):
APL Support is available in Version 1.11

IRMA
IRMA (PC) ??
Digital Communications Associates, Inc.
1000 Alderman Drive
Alpharetta, Georgia 30201-4199 USA
tel. (770) 442-4000

Kermit
Dyalog APL reportedly has a tweaked kermit for APL/X 6.x. This
supports APL characters on a PC (DOS or DOS session under Windows)
when running APL on a Unix box.

RUMBA
RUMBA (for 3270, APL and graphics)
Wall Data
17769 NE 78th Place
Redmond WA 98052-4992
206-883-4777

rxvt
OpenAPL has support for X11 terminals, but this may not match
character orderings for other APLs.

Sun
Sun reportedly has a very good emulator for SunOS 4 and Solaris 2
which emulates an IBM 3179G APA colour graphics terminal.

TN3270
TN3270 (Macintosh) Not public domain, but may be freely distributed.
Works with TCP/IP
Anonymous FTP from BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU (128.148.128.40):
Distribution files are in the highest level directory. Begin by
retrieving the file $README.FIRST which describes the other files.

Anonymous FTP from FTP.NCSA.UIUC.EDU (128.174.20.50):
Distribution files are contained in the directory
NCSA_Telnet/tn3270. Same files as above above for
BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU.

BITNET distribution from LISTSERV@BROWNVM:
Send LISTSERV the command GET TN3270 PACKAGE. GET LOCAL FILELIST
for a complete list of available files.

Mail order from Brown for $20 (check payable to Brown University):
TN3270 Distribution
Brown University Computer Store
P.O. Box 1885
Providence, Rhode Island 02912 USA

Info -- the NCSA Telnet Digest subscription:
request@ncsa.uiuc.edu.

x3270
x3270 for Unix systems (Linux, Solaris,...)
A free 327x emulator with APL support. Get the
source from ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/applications
or see the home page at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Peaks/7814

YTERM
YTERM For PC, supports IBM, VAX, TCP/IP with APL/APL2 chars.
Yale University Computing & Information Systems
Software Distribution
175 Whitney Avenue
New Haven CT 06520
Tel: (203) 432-6600 Fax: (203)-432-6165
LISTSERV@YALEVM

Z-Stem
Z-Stem, a series of VT (e.g. VT240) emulators, for MSDOS PC/VAX-11
KEA Systems
3738 North Fraser Way, Unit 101
Burnaby, British Columbia
Canada, V5J 5G1
(604) 431-0727




(3) Q: What about APL keyboards/stickers?
A: APL Keyboards/Keycaps

APL keyboard
IBM/Lexmark keyboard, part no. 60G3571 or KB-571,
(Professional 101-key keyboard about $90)
APL2 Keycaps, US and UK base set (about $46)SX80-0270
APL2 Keycaps, German Upgrade to SX80-0270 SX80-0452
APL2 Keycaps, German Upgrade to SX80-0270 SX80-0453
APL2 Keycaps, French Upgrade to SX80-0270 SX80-0454
APL2 Keycaps, Italian Upgrade to SX80-0270 SC33-0604
APL2 Keyboard Decals (about $13 for set of two)
Keycaps and decals are "publications" - order at 800-879-2755

Keyboard stickers, custom replacement key caps
Hooleon Corp.
P.O. Box 230
Cornville, AZ 86325
Tel: (602) 634-7515
Fax: (602) 634-4620

Keyboard stickers
APL2000 Inc. (see above address)

On-screen Maps
KEYBOARD.AWS: APL*PLUS pop-up color keyboard diagram
at the touch of a PF key. Incorporate it in any .AWS.
Ask for catalog from email:dick_holt@email.com




(4) Q: Can I compile APL?
A: Compilers
APL2C
APL2C compiler/translator and interpreter,
for Microsoft Windows 9x/NT/2000, written by Dr. Tilman P. Otto
http://www.apl2c.com
email: otto@apl2c.com

APL to C
APL to C conversion and compiler
- I've heard this is out of business these days.
Sofremi-AGL
6. rue Paul Bert
92800 Puteaux - France
(1) 47.72.25.13 + Telex: 612 651 F

IBM 370 APL*PLUS
Manugistics compiler for IBM 370 APL*PLUS, documented in APL '85.
see Manugistics listing above, or
email aplsales@manu.com.


Experimental:

APEX
Robert Bernecky's APEX compiler:
Snake Island Research Inc.
http://www.snakeisland.com/[9/2003]
email:bernecky@acm.org

APLc
Tim Budd's APLc:
anonymous login to ftp.cs.orst.edu, cd users/b/budd, or
http://www.cs.orst.edu/~budd and look under books.
(latest C++ version unavailable?)

Sam Sirlin's current modification (5.05) of Budd's older aplc:
(mostly flat apl, ported to Sun4/5, Freebsd, Atari, Linux, Dec Alpha)
See http://home.earthlink.net/~swsirlin/apl.html
or send mail to sam@kalessin.jpl.nasa.gov asking for it

CAPLIB
Thomas Glen Smith's CAPLIB2 package, while not strictly a compiler
Has C procedures corresponding to APL functions/operators (see above)

A list of references on APL compilation is available
ftp://archive.uwaterloo.ca/languages/apl/bibliography/compilers.html


(5) Q: What tools exist for APL?
A: Other tools for APL

Dino database for huge amount of data,Saurus tools for
multidimensional databases
Dinosoft Oy
Lonnrotinkatu 21 C
00120 HELSINKI, Finland
Phone: +358 9 70028820, Fax: +358 9 70028824
email: dinosoft@dinosoft.fi
http://www.dinosoft.fi/

IEDIT (APL2 editor),AFM file system,APL2 tools[11/98]
Interprocess Systems, Inc.
http://www.interprocess.com/

Insight Systems [4/2000]
SQAPL, an interface to SQL databases via ODBC or
SequeLink, a spreadsheet manager, and a number of other APL tools
available for many APL systems. Dealers for Dyalog APL, APL+Win
from Cognos/APL2000, APL2 from IBM, J from Jsoftware,
Causeway Products.

Insight Systems ApS
Nordre Strandvej 119G
DK-3150 Hellebaek, Denmark
Phone: +45 7026 1326
FAX: +45 7026 1325
http://www.insight.dk
info@insight.dk


APs for Dyalog APL for Windows
Auxiliary Processors for Dyalog APL for Windows
Lingo Allegro USA, Inc.
6749 S.Westnedge Ave, Suite K-268
Phone: +1 312 203 4926
Fax: +1 708 459 8501
Internet: 71303.3224@CompuServe.com
http://www.lingo.com

Computer Aided Instruction

Computer Aided Instruction, for PC or mainframe IBM. Also a newsletter.
Zark Incorporated
23 Ketchbrook Lane
Ellington CT 06029 USA


(6) Q: Can I get an APL font for X?
A: Besides commercial products that come with the interpreters, there are:

o Fonts for TeX, laTeX, the X windows system, postscript, and
truetype (windows) are available. See
ftp://archive.uwaterloo.ca/languages/apl/fonts/

o Truetype fonts for windows are available from ISI.

o Truetype fonts Dyalog APL and Vector APL are available gratis, if
you send a blank, formatted disk:
Adrian Smith
Brook House, Gilling East, YORK
England -- U.K.
(See his article in the April 1993 issue of VECTOR journal)

o STSC, now Manugistics, used to distribute a rom chip with the APL
characters for use in old monochrome adapters (now almost
extinct). There's also code called SIMCGA.COM, that makes an old
Hercules act like a cga (itself pretty old).

o Fonts from several vendors are available for use (free of charge)
in preparing articles for APL Quote Quad, APL conference
proceedings, or other educational articles. This can be found on
the ACM SIGAPL Web site. Word processing Templates to aid the
author in preparing articles for conference proceedings or for
submission to APL Quote Quad can also be found on the ACM SIGAPL
web site.

o Paul L Jackson's pljtools.zip contains DOSAPP.FON which if put in
the Windows\Font directory, will provide an 8x16 APL font for a DOS
window. This should work for various MS Windows products and
APLSE. This is available at waterloo and Sam Sirlin's home page.

o For web browsers, see Vector's site for a free ttf font (for pc's)
http://www.vector.org.uk/aplfont.htm
Dyadic has a .fon font (for pc's)
I don't know how to make this work for X though yet.


(7) Q: What information exists online about APL?
A:

Online information, free* APLs & WS

o Anonymous ftp servers:

o ftp://rtfm.mit.edu The official archive site for this faq and
many others. The latest version of this faq is at
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/comp.lang.apl/APL_language_FAQ

o archive.uwaterloo.ca or watserv1.uwaterloo.ca (129.97.128.10)
L.J. Dickey's collection. Current J distribution for many
machines (and J source, including LinkJ), APL\11, APLSE, CAPL,
IAPL, RatAPL, TryAPL, APL fonts, TeX macros and fonts, the
toronto toolkit, some other WS, archives of comp.lang.apl, the
APL standard, an Introduction to J, and this FAQ. These are in
directories starting from directory languages/apl
ftp://archive.uwaterloo.ca/languages/apl/Welcome.html
ftp://archive.uwaterloo.ca/languages/j/Welcome.html

o ftp://exaia.wu-wien.ac.at (137.208.15.202)
some J sources, particularly for HP

o ftp://ftp.ips.cs.tu-bs.de
Some apl/J stuff, copy of the draft standard. In
/ftp/ips/pub/...

o ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com, IBM support site. Look in
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/ps/products/apl2.
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/ps/products/apl2/demos contains a
free (time limited) demo of APL2 for Windows, and TryAPL.

o ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com
The site of Committee Draft 1 of the APL ANSI/ISO standard
(1/93) in:
pub/plan/apl/cover.ps (a cover letter)
pub/plan/apl/aplcd1.ps (the main document)

o ftp://nova.cc.purdue.edu, cs.orst.edu
some NEXT/J material: j.pkg.tar, Visage.pkg.tar

o ftp://wuvieai.wu-wien.ac.at (137.208.15.20)
This mirror of the APL Archives on watserv1 may be more
convenient for users in Europe. Start in the directory /pub/lang/apl

o Web (WWW) html servers:

o ACM SIGAPL - information about the ACM, SIGAPL, related
organizations, conferences, Internet resources, and the APL
White Pages.
http://www.acm.org/sigapl/

o AFAPL - French APL users group.
http://www.afapl.asso.fr

o APL White Pages
A collection of names and email adressess of those
interested in APL. Over 300 listings.
To be listed, or see a listing go to
http://www.acm.org/sigapl

o Bob Armstrong's CoSy page - APL/K notecomputing environment (10/2001)
http://cosy.com/K/CoSy.htm, or
http://cosy.com/language/

o APL2000 Inc. Home Page
http://www.APL2000.com

o APL Software Team GmbH - German distributor of Dyadic APL
http://www.aplteam.de

o The Brighton University Resource Kit for Students, produced by
John English (with various APL resources)
http://burks.bton.ac.uk[broken?
9/19/2003]

o Bernard Houben's site, IQL, Dyalog APL
http://www.tip.nl/users/bernard.houben/

o Dyadic
http://www.dyadic.com/

o Eke van Batenburg's APL webpage:
http://wwwbio.LeidenUniv.nl/~batenburg/wekAPL.html

o FinnAPL, Tauno Ylinen's FREEAPL for Windows, a couple of
Dyalog workspaces, and APL idioms list
http://www.pyr.fi/apl/index.htm

o Conrad Hoesle-Kienzlen's web page,
CHK IT-Consulting
http://www.hoesle-kienzlen.de

o IBM APL2 Home Page
http://www.ibm.com/software/ad/apl

o J and APL Web Ring
Web-ring moderated by Alex Kornilovski:
http://webhome.idirect.com/~kornal/ring/index.html

o J Home Page
http://www.jsoftware.com

o J. E. Howland's Home page; APL/J references
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~jhowland/

o J.E.H. Shaw's Home page; J Guide
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/statsdept/Staff/JEHS/index.html

o K. Smillie's Home page; Various information for J, Beginning
J, J and statistics
http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~smillie/

o Learning J - web book on J by Roger Stokes (second draft 11/99)
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/rstokes/book.htm

o Lescasse Consulting - importer, distributor for APL2000 in France
http://www.lescasse.com

o Milinta - Software and education for a variety of
APL's. Help with workspace/file transfer between some APLs.
(Dyalog, APL+family, SHARP MF, SAX)
http://www.milinta.com

o Mozilla Open Directory project
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Languages/APL/

o Openhere Network - Web search engine written in APL
http://openhere.com/

o Porting Mind.forth to APL
http://mind.sourceforge.net/apl.html


o Rex Swain's APL Information
http://www.rexswain.com/aplinfo.html

o Web site for Les Nouvelles d'APL
http://www.ensmp.fr/~scherer/langlet

o Web Site for Lingo Allegro:
http://www.lingo.com

o MicroAPL Limited
http://www.microapl.co.uk

o Q'Nial - a similar array language
http://www.nial.com/

o Soliton's web page
http://www.soliton.com (Main Page)
http://www.soliton.com/Linux (Sharp APL for Linux)

o Toronto SIG - various information, back issues of the
newsletter Gimme Arrays!
http://www.torontoapl.org

o Uniware (APL+Win and Dyalog APL/W, for now)
http://www.uniware.fr/uk (english)
http://www.uniware.fr (french)

o Web site for Vector (maintained by Ray Cannon)
http://www.vector.org.uk

o Jim Weigang's Home Page - Newsreader etc.
http://www.chilton.com/~jimw

o Mail servers

listserv@listserv.unb.ca (listserv@unb.ca), in the list APL-L,
archives of comp.lang.apl
ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com - mail access to waterloo, gatekeeper

o Mail servers/lists
BITFTP@PUCC.BITNET - access to waterloo

Access to the APL-L on bitnet from the internet can be done via
mail:

To: listserv@unb.ca
Subject: SUBSCRIBE APL-L
SUBSCRIBE APL-L

DyalogAPL t-chan@u-aizu.ac.jp
for Dyalog users
APL-ERS APL-ERS@IRLEARN.BITNET
UCD APL Interest Group "virtually extinct"
APL-L APL-L@UNB.CA,
APL-L@UNBVM1.BITNET (broken?)
APL Language Discussion (mirror of comp.lang.apl)
APLEDU-LAPLEDU-L@UNBVM1.BITNET
APL in Education
A+http://www.aplusdev.org/Lists/index.html
A+ mail list, archive
J Forumhttp://www.jsoftware.com/resources.htm
J mail list, archive
Khttp://www.kx.com/listbox/
K mail list archives

o Inquiries about the ISO APL standards should be addressed to
your national standards body, or to any delagete from your
country. If you can not find out who that is, you may ask
Lee Dickey at ljdickey@math.uwaterloo.ca (SC22 WG3 attendees)

o SIGAPL Software Library

New Name, New Addresses:

SIGAPL has made major changes in its software distribution system.
The SIGAPL Software Library replaces what was formerly known as
the "Software Exchange." SIGAPL wants to make array processing
software much more widely available and easy to get. We want it
to be decoupled from annual APL conferences, available year-round,
unbundled by interpreter, and electronically free. Thanks to Lee
Dickey at the University of Waterloo, this software is now
available at:

o ftp://archive.uwaterloo.ca/languages/apl/software-library
o ftp://wuvieai.wu-wei.ac/pub/lang/apl (Vienna mirror of Waterloo)

APL96 Conference Software Highlights:

MERLIN Two new AWS mind bogglers (Langlet, FR)
GRAN AWS []G Graphics (Buzin, RU)
NFILES W3 Long file names, National Characters (Glantz, SE)
APL2OS2TAPL2/2 Tutorial for OS/2 (Jizba, US)
APLSE Free APL*PLUS v10 Interpreter (Manugistics/APL2000)
LRNAPLSEAPLSE Tutorial & Documentation (Holt, US)
UNLOCK-DUnlock locked fns in any small AWS (Holt, US)
SL-GuideHow to add to the SIGAPL Software Library

SIGAPL Software Guidelines:

The SIGAPL Software Library (SL) is the premier venue for APL,
J, and other array-oriented authors to display their programming
ideas and skills, and for vendors to showcase their demos and
products. APL and J software authors and vendors are invited
to send their material on a 3.5" DOS disk to:

Lee Dickey, Mathematics Department
University of Waterloo
Waterloo Ontario
Canada 2NL 3G1

Tell him that it's for the Software Library. You may send your
software at *any* time of the year. FTP upload is available
on demand. Write to Lee Dickey at ljdickey@math.uwaterloo.ca

SIGAPL's updated Software Library guidelines are:

o Include an ASCII file (call it WSNAME.TXT) to describe what
the software does, and what hardware and software is needed
to use it. English is preferred, and other languages are
welcome.

o Think electronically. Your software needs to be packaged
as a stand-alone product for electronic distribution.
Good documen- tation adds real value to your software.

o Put all of your material in one single .ZIP file for easy
FTPing.

o Include any needed copyright permissions. Copyrighted
software can't be distributed without permission.

o If possible, provide APL software in both its original
form and as an APLACSCII file. APLASCII software (v1.4)
is available for all major APLs at the electronic sources
listed above.

o Check your software for viruses. Archive.waterloo.ca will
also check your software for viruses.

o Authors should pay special attention to the quality, usefulness,
and documentation of their work, and should include their name
and address (including email).

o Significant improvements and major updates of prior SL
software are welcome.


(8) Q: How do I get book Y?
A: Sources of Publications/Books

o APL Book Sales [1/2002]
operated by Robert G. Brown
On-Line at
http://www.apl-books.com, or
APL Book Sales
6749 South Westnedge Avenue
Suite K-288
Portage, Michigan
USA 49002
email: bob@acm.org
FAX: (616) 324-9070

o APL Quote Quad
Association for Computing Machinery
(address below)

o Dick Holt
An email catalog of software for APL*PLUS, APL Special Edition
Freeware, on-screen APL lessons and docs, plus many APL books is
available upon request from Dick Holt,
email:dick_holt@email.com

o EducAPL
1120 Ave du Parc
Quebec PQ
CANADA G1S2W7

o Renaissance Data Systems [3/02]
All books on APL and J in print
P.O.Box 313, Newtown, CT 06470, USA
email: aplbooks@earthlink.net
http://www.aplbooks.com

o Past proceedings of the "APL as a Tool of Thought" conferences
are available from NY/SIGAPL.


(9) Q: What good APL books exist?
A: Reference Books

References - books mentioned on the net or that someone has recomended,
not all of which are available:

For a more complete list online see: ftp://archive.uwaterloo.ca/languages/apl/bibliography/index.html

o APL"nn" Conference Proceedings - The annual ACM/SigAPL conference
proceedings, published yearly from 19?? (APL??) to date (APL96)
as an issue of APL Quote Quad; replace nn by the appropriate last
two digits of the year.

o Brown et. al. "APL2 at a Glance," Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-038670-7.

o T. Budd, "An APL Compiler," Springer-Verlag.

o Maurice Dalois, "Introduction to APL*PLUS PC,"
available from EducAPL, US$30, US$10 for overseas shipping.

o J. Ever and C. Fair, "Guidelines for APL Systems,"
DPD 22 IBM 037301, March 1976.

o Gilman and Rose, "APL - An Interactive Approach," Wiley,
ISBN 220-471-30022-5.

o Ulf Grenander, "Mathematical Experiments on the Computer,"
Academic Press, 1982, ISBN 0-12-301750-5.

o Kent Haralson, Useful APL Defined Functions, IBM Technical
Report, TR 00.2409, Feb. 8 1973.

o Timothy Holls, "APL Programming Guide," IBM G320-6103, 1978, and
G320-6735, 1981, (out of print?).

o IBM, "APL2 Programming: Language Reference"
(Version 2, SH21-1061; Version 1, SH20-9227 (DOS only)).

o IBM, "The APL Handbook of Techniques", IBM publication number
S320-5996, April 1978. Includes routines for multi-precision
integer and float operations.

o The IBM System Journal, V. 30, No. 4 (1991); Special Issue
Devoted to APL.

o A.D. Falkoff, K.E Iverson, E.H Sussenguth, "A formal description
of System/360,"
The IBM System Journal, V. 3, No. 3 (1964)

o K. E. Iverson, A Programming Language, Wiley, 1962.

o K. Iverson, "A personal view of APL," IBM Systems Journal,
Vol. 30, No. 4, 1991.

o K. Iverson, Concrete Mathematics Companion

o S. Kamin, "Programming Languages: An Interpreter-Based
Approach," contains (among other things) toy implementations of
Lisp, APL, Scheme, SASL, CLU, Smalltalk, and Prolog,
Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN 0-201-06824-9.

o Bernard LEGRAND, "Les APL Etendus," Masson, Paris, 1994. An
introduction to modern APL (French).

o Jon McGrew, "An Introduction to APL2," IBM (SH20-9229).

o James A. Mason, "Learning APL: An Array Processing Language,"
Harper & Row Publishers Inc., New York, 1986, ISBN 0-06-044243-3 260 pp.

o Peelle, APL an Introduction, Holt, Rinehart & Winston,
ISBN 0-03-004953-9.

o Reiter & Jones, APL with a Mathematical Accent, Brooks/Cole
ISBN 0-534-12864-5, (now being distributed by Chapman & Hall).

o C. Reiter, Fractuals Visualization and J, Iverson Software, Inc,
1995 ISBN 1-895721-11-3.

o Adrian Smith, "APL, A Design Handbook for Commercial Systems,"
Wiley series in information processing,
Wiley & Sons, 1982, ISBN 0-471-10092-7.

o Norman D. Thomson, Raymond P. Polivka, "APL2 in Depth,"
Springer-Verlag, 1995, ISBN 0-387-94213-0 ($39.95).

o Jerry R. Turner, "APL IS EASY!," Manugistics, 1993.

o "SHARP APL Reference Manual," 2nd ed., Soliton Associates Limited
PC Version: Iverson Software, 1993, ISBN 1-895721-07-5.

o Jim Weigang, "APL Notes,"
An introduction to APL that includes 16- and 32-bit APL*PLUS
interpreters. For orders and more information, see:
http://www.chilton.com/~jimw/aplnotes.html

o "A Source Book in APL," APL Press, 1981, ISBN 0-917326-10-5.

o "J Phrases," Iverson Software, 1996, ISBN 1-895721-12-1

o "Exploring Math", Iverson Software, 1996, ISBN 1-895721-13-X

o "J Primer," Iverson Software, 1996, ISBN 1-895721-14-8


(10) Q: What user groups exist?
A: User groups

Note that information on officers may be somewhat
out of date.

ACM/SIGAPL
Association for Computing Machinery / Special Interest Group on
APL, international membership.
Quarterly journal Quote Quad. Chapter groups around the country.
Association for Computing Machinery
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
Tel: (212) 626-0500
email acmhelp@acm.org

APLBUG [10/15/2000]
APL Bay Area Users Group, Northern California ACM SIGAPL
Meets monthly, regular newsletter, $20/yr.
Chairman:Chuck Kennedy
(408)241-2920
Charles-Kennedy@home.com
Secretary/Treasurer:Curtis Jones
228 South 15th Street
San Jose, CA 95112-2150
jonesca@us.ibm.com
Newsletter editor:Chuck Kennedy

BACUS
Belgian APL CAM Users Society
APL CAM Journal (4 issues / year in French, Dutch, English) and
other publications. fee: 500 BEF
c/o Joseph De Kerf
Rooienberg 72
B2570 Duffel BELGIUM
tel.: 32-15-31 47 24

BAA (11/1/98)
BAA British APL Association, a specialist group of the British
Computer Society, international membership.
Quarterly journal VECTOR maintains a comprehensive vendor and product
list. See the vector page for current information:
http://www.vector.org.uk

Chicago APL SIG
Larry Mysz
Chicago APL SIG
836 Highland Drive
Chicago Heights IL 60411, USA
email: 73040.3032@compuserve.com

Connecticut APL group
Bob Pomeroy
Mass Mutual Life
1295 State Street
Mail Drop F465
Springfield MA 01111 USA
Tel: +1 413 788 8411 x2838

Denmark
APL Special Interest Group of the Danish Data Association (DDA) [4/2000]
Helene Boesen
email: hb@insight.dk

Dutch APL User Group
APL Werkgroep Nederland
President: Theo Zwart
OASIS
Lekstraat, 4
NL3433 ZB Niewegein
The NETHERLANDS
Tel: +31 3402 66336
Fax: +31 3402 65844
Secretary: B. Smoor
Dorpstraat 50
4128BZ Lexmond
The Netherlands
Also contact: Eke Van Batenburg
email: Batenburg@rulsfb.LeidenUniv.nl

AFAPL (6/2000)
Association Francophone pour la promotion du langage APL
Les Nouvelles d'APL (journal 4/year) and other publications in
French. fee: 350 franch francs in France, 450 FF abroad, 2800 FF
for firms.
174, bd de Charonne
75020 PARIS
FRANCE
Tel. & Fax : (33)-1-43-56-31-79)
President:Michel Roszewitch
General Secretary:Ludmila Lemagnen
email: lemagnen@aol.com
www: http://www.afapl.asso.fr

APL-Club Germany
c/o Dieter Lattermann
Rheinstrasse 23
D-69190 Walldorf, GERMANY
Tel: +49 6227 2003
email: 100332.1461@Compuserve.com


Groupe APL-J\Quebec (Quebec)[11/13/98]
APL user group in Quebec (city)
Gilles Kirouac, president
Quebec, Canada
email: gkirouac@riq.qc.ca

Japan APL Association (JAPLA)
Japanese APL/J interest group.
Monthly meetings at every 3rd Saturday and hold study APL /J.
Currently published JAPLA's journal 2 times / year.
We welcome to our associate member who has an interest in APL/J.
JAPLA's Office:
c/o PRIDE
Masujima Bldg.
1-8-13, Higasi Gotanda,
Shinagawa ku,
Tokyo, 141 JAPAN
Tel: 81-3-3280-0411
Fax: 81-3-3280-0418
Chairman: Dr. Tosio Nishikawa
Laboratory National Chemical for Industry
Higashi 1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305, Japan
International Interface: Masafusa Yasuda
2-4-10, Nogata,
Nakano ku,
Tokyo, 165, JAPAN
Tel/Fax: 81-3-3319-1956
email: myasuda@mix.or.jp

APL Club Oesterreich
APL Club Oesterreich
Obere Donaustrasse 95
A-1020 Wein, AUSTRIA

Rome/Italy ACM SIGAPL
Casella Postale 14343
00100 - Roma Trullo, ITALY
Chair: Mario Sacco
email: marsac@vnet.ibm.com
Additional contact: David Lanari
Universita di Perugia
Piaza dell'Universita 2
Via G. Verga 30
I06100 Perugia, ITALY
email: david@ipguniv.bitnet

Melbourne APL Users Group
Contacts:
Harvey Davies
CSIRO Div Atm Res
Private Bag No. 1
Mordialloc, Victoria 3195, Australia
Phone: +61 3 586 7574
email: hld@dar.csiro.au
Moshe Sniedovich
email: moshe@mundoe.maths.mu.oz.au

NY/SIGAPL [revised 8/10/98]
The New York City local chapter of ACM SIGAPL.
Monthly meetings (ex July/August), newsletter "Big Apple APL",
"APL as a Tool of Thought" miniconferences, approx. annual.
Dues $35, $25 for ACM or ACM SIGAPL members, $10 for students.
PO Box 2697
New York,
NY 10163-2697
USA
Chairman: David E. Siegel
Tel: 609-734-9554 (work)
email: Siegel@acm.org
Newsletter editor: Jim Boyd
Tel: +1 914-941-9239
email: jhb@acm.org
Membership chairman: Lynne C. Shaw
Tel: +1 212-662-2406
email: shaw@acm.org

Potomac ACM SIGAPL
The Potomac ACM SIGAPL Chapter has been inactive since August 1996.
For information about Potomac SIGAPL, send email to Dick Holt
(dick_holt@email.com).

SEAPL
South East APL Users' Group
Doc Manges
SEAPL Newsletter Editor
email: SEAPLDOC@aol.com
Tel: 770-972-3755
413 Comanche Trail
Lawrenceville GA 30244
Other contacts:
Gordon and Stella Chamberlain
Interprocess Systems, Inc.
http://www.interprocess.com/

SOCAL-SIGAPL
SOCAL-SIGAPL Southern California APL user's group. Meets
approximately every other month, at Los Angeles City
College. Regular newsletter, electronic only. No dues. (11/23/98)
Editor: Arthur J. Stasney
Contacts:
astasney@earthlink.net (Arthur J. Stasney)
jizba@gte.com (Zdenek V. Jizba)

SovAPL
Alexander O. Skomorokhov
P.O. Box 5061
Obninsk - 5
Kaluga Region
RUSSIA
email: askom@apl2.obninsk.su
Dr Alexander Skomorokhov
Obninsk Institut of Nuclear Power/IATE
Studgorod 1
Obninsk
Kaluga Region 249020
RUSSIA
Tel: +7 084439 31463
Fax: +7 095 2552225
email: askom@apl2.obninsk.su

Suomen APL
Suomen APL-yhdistys ry (Finn APL Association) about 4 informal
newsletters/year, mainly in Finnish, one English issue/year.
Membership fees,per year: 100 Fmk (about 20 $). (March 1998)
Address: Box 1005, 00101 Helsinki, Finland
Chair: Timo Korpela (1998)
The Central Pension Security Institute
SF-00065 Elaketurvakeskus, Finland
Phone: +358 9 1512164, Fax: +358 9 1512496
http://www.pyr.fi/apl/index.htm

SWAPL
SWAPL -- SouthWest APL Users' Group
Membership fees, per year USA$12
Non-USA postal supplement$6

c/o Stuart Yarus (newsletter editor)
P.O. Box 210367
Bedford, TX 76095 U.S.A.
(817) 656 5896; (817) 577 0165
Compuserve: 73700,2545
Internet: 73700.2545@compuserve.com

SwedAPL
Chairman is Christer Ulfhielm.
c/o Novator Consulting Group AB
Svardvagen 11C
S-182 33 Danderyd
Sweden
Tel: +46 8 6226350
Fax: +46 8 6226351
email: 100341.404@CompuServe.com (Christer Ulfhielm)

Swiss APL User(s) Group
Hans Steffen
Swiss APL User Group
c/o Federal Statistical Office
CH3003 Berne
SWITZERLAND
Fax: +41 31 382 27 95
See also:
Dr. Hanspeter Bieri
Institut fur Informatik
Universitat Berne
Langgasstrasse 51
CH3012 Bern
SWITZERLAND
Tel: +41 31 65 86 81
Fax: +41 31 65 39 65
email:bieri@iam.unibe.ch
email: si@ifi.unizh.ch

Sydney APL Users Group
Newsletter (with contributions from Melbourne group): "Epsilon"
Acting President and Treasurer: Nick Laletin, Jr.
PO Box 1511
Macquarie Centre,
North Ryde 2113 Australia
Tel: +61 02 427 1605
Fax: (02) 257 6670
Secretary: Erik Nielson
Phone: +61 2 257 5742

Toronto ACM APL SIG
Toronto ACM APL SIG (9/98)
Meets monthly, excluding July, August, December
Attendance is free
Chair: Dan King danking@sympatico.ca 416-595-1782
Newsletter: publication is suspended until further notice
Treasurer: Eric Granz egranz@arvotek.net 416-784-8703
P.O. Box 55
Adelaide Street Post Office
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5C 2H8
email: info@torontoapl.org
http://www.torontoapl.org


(11) Q: What's the latest APL conference?
A: Conferences

NY/SIGAPL
APL as a Tool of Thought
Held Yearly in NY
Last Held: 31 January 1998

The APL2000 User Conference
The 2000 APL2000 User Conference [4/2000]
APL2000 Inc is please to announce the fifth annual APL2000 User Conference
to be held Sunday, November 12th - Wednesday November 15th
at the Rosen Plaza Hotel (formerly the Clarion Plaza Hotel) in Orlando Florida.
For further information, please contact our conference coordinator,
Sonia Beekman, at (301) 564-5020, email sonia@apl2000.com. or check
our web site at http://www.APL2000.com.

The Annual ACM SigAPL Conference
APL2002: Array Processing Languages Lore, Problems and Applications [7/2002]
July 22-25, 2002
Madrid, Spain
For information see http://www.apl2002.com

Previous ACM SigAPL Conferences
APL2001: An Arrays Odyssey, June 25-28, 2001,
Yale University, New Haven, CT, U.S.A.
http://www.acm.org/sigAPL,
http://www.acm.org/sigapl/apl2001

APL Berlin 2000: The 2000 International Conference on Array Programming Languages
Think Arrays in a Great City, July 24-27, 2000 - Berlin, Germany
http://stat.cs.tu-berlin.de/APL-Berlin-2000
APL99: The 1999 International Conference
on all Array Programming Languages
August 10-14, 1999 - University of Scranton, Scranton,
Pennsylvania, USA
See the web page: http://www.lingo.com/apl99/, or
See the ACM SIGAPL website, or subscribe to the APL99 mailing list.
You can subscribe by sending email to listserve@acm.org with
"Subscribe APL99-Info Your Name" in the BODY of the msg (without the
quotes). You will be requested to confirm your subscription. You
will receive an automatic welcome msg and updated information as it is
available.

Previous conference proceedings are available from ACM as issues of
APL Quote Quad. For APL97 a video and CD ROM are available from Eric
Granz of the Toronto APL SIG (see above).

SIGAPL Software Library
All Conference Packages, for all years, will be available
from SIGAPL and the Waterloo Archives at
ftp://archive.uwaterloo.ca/languages/apl/software-library/index.html


(12) Q: How do I pass APL functions from one APL to another?
A: Migration of applications

Different APL vendors store workspaces in completely different
formats. This has greatly reduced sharing of functions among users,
and made it difficult for users to migrate between vendors and even
between machines. Here there are two main options -

o Use the Workspace Interchange Standard (WSIS), documented in the
ISO standard. This has been partially implemented by various
vendors. For example Manugistics (STSC) uses an SLT workspace to
do the reading/writing.

o Use the IBM )in and )out .atf files (documentation?) Here are
some concrete instructions, courtesy of Eke van Batenburg,
Batenburg@rulsfb.LeidenUniv.nl:

You only port APL, no GUI, no file I/O, no graphics, no locked
objects. The following recipees use (arbitrary choosen) filename
TRANSW.ATF on floppy as intermediate. "<>" means "next line".

o Macintosh APL68000 export to floppy:
[]MOUNT'Untitled' <> )OUT 0 TRANSWS
In finder, change file name to "TRANSWS.ATF"

o Macintosh APL68000 import from floppy:
In finder, change file name to "TRANSWS" (without ".ATF"
extension!!!)
[]MOUNT'Untitled' <> )IN 0 TRANSWS Problems:
"INVALID FILE" can mean "SYMBOL TABLE FULL" (check ")SYMBOLS"
and increase them to 1000) or comment lines in file (remove
all lines beginning with "*" using any editor and try again).

o Atari APL68000 export to floppy:
[]MOUNT 'A:' <> )OUT 0 TRANSWS

o Atari APL68000 import from floppy
[]MOUNT 'A:' <> )IN 0 TRANSWS
Problems: same as in point 2.

o IBM APL2/PC export to floppy:
)HOST A: <> )OUT TRANSWS

o IBM APL2/PC import from floppy:
)HOST A: <> )IN TRANSWS
Problems: none experienced upto now

o IBM mainframe export to floppy:
start APL with "APL2 CASE(2)" (necessary for underscored
conversion)
)CLEAR <> )COPY workspacetobeported (NOT LOAD!!!!)
)OUT TRANSWS <> )CLEAR <> )IN TRANSWS <> )OUT TRANSWS
(yes, 2x seems to work, 1x sometimes gives gibberish, I don't know why)
Download ....APLTF.TRANSWS to floppy, rename to TRANSWS.ATF
Problems: if you download with Kermit: set TEXTMODE OFF and
set file TYPE BINARY

o IBM mainframe import from floppy
I have no experience with this, but I suppose:
Upload TRANSWS.ATF to file ...APLTF.TRANSWS
)IN TRANSWS

o APL2000 APL+DOS, APL+UNIX, APL+Win export to floppy:
]OUT A:TRANSWS.ATF

o APL2000 APL+DOS, APL+UNIX, APL+Win import from floppy:
]IN A:TRANSWS.ATF
Problems: Different from IBM or APL68000 or "extended standard"
are:
"A B C[2]" is B, partioned enclose, squeezed quad,
monadic ",[1.5]", take with axis and scalar functions with axis.

o Dyalog APL:
im/export functions have since several years a bug that thinks
that your recordsize is wrong. If you manage to correct only
this, it seems to work find.

o Contribution of others to TRYAPL(?), IPSharp APL, ISIAPL etc.

o Write the functions/data out to ASCII files using some sort of
transliteration scheme (see 11). This has the advantage over
(1) that the files are human-readable and editable.

All schemes suffer from the basic incompatibility between APL
vendors. This comes from extensions to standard ISO APL in several
areas:

o Different built in functions - the quad functions. This includes
file IO, graphics etc. Also the (mostly obsolete) ibeam
functions.
o Generalized arrays - boxes versus nests. A major fight in the
community for at least the last 10 years. Unresolved.
o User defined operators - not all implementations allow this.
o Multivalent functions - not all implementations allow this.

Each instance of the above requires someone who knows both
implementations to rewrite the code. Hence only ISO APL is easily
portable.

(13) Q: How do I write APL using only ASCII?
A: Writing APL in ASCII

Almost all vendors have provided ways to enter APL from non-APL
terminals. They took forms such as @BOX for example. For some reason
however, they all used different symbol sets and different
transliterations. Hence all are incompatible. Various users, seeing
the advantage of this approach versus the WSIS have tried their
hands.

I there are several separate issues: writing an APL character, writing
APL data, writing APL functions, and writing out a whole workspace.

Approaches for character :

o My own approach - see symbols3v1.txt on my home page
Example: s .is + / .ro , a

o William Chang (wchang@phage.cshl.org)
has proposed a J-ish verion called APL!
Example: s <- +/ ? , a

o Jim Weigang has proposed a bit more verbose version.
Example: s {<-} +/ {rho} , a

Approaches for objects:
o John Mitloehner (mitloehn@uxq.wu-wien.ac.at)
has proposed a PP scheme for this that includes data and functions.
See his article at APL92. Code for various APLs is available at
waterloo. Example:

@begin function NUB
R@is NUB X
R@is ((X@iota X)= @iota @rho X)/X
@end function

Code is also available for incorporation of APL into latex
documents.

o Jim Weigang proposes the more familiar "Del editor" output
format. Sample code for this translator is available in this
format.


(14) Q: Where can I find APL employment information?
A: The APL Skills Database

The APL Skills Database (http://www.torontoapl.org/skills)
is a free worldwide employment information project, provided
by The Toronto APL Special Interest Group and The ACM Special
Interest Group on APL.

Recognizing the niche-market nature of the use of APL in data
processing, the APL Skills Database project was launched in
1994 to aid companies and employers looking for APL-skilled
personnel, and to help APL-skilled professionals seeking
employment opportunities with companies needing APL expertise.
To date, dozens of participants in the project have been
successfully placed in APL-related employment positions by
using this service!

The APL Skills Database website will post information about
APL-related employment as it becomes available. Also, an email
broadcast facility sends monthly job bulletins to APL-skilled
participants who subscribe to this service (now over 100 persons).

The APL Skills Database is a free service for both employers
and job-seekers. If you are an employer looking for APL skills,
send us the details of the position being offered and we will
post them on our website. APL-skilled persons who subscribe
to the APL Skills Database will be sent these incoming job
notices via email as they arrive.

The APL Skills Database website also has a section for posting
the resumes of APL-skilled individuals who may be in the job
market. If you already have your own website, we will link to
it from our site.

All information and questions about the project may be
directed to either of our email addresses:

info@torontoapl.org or apl_jobs@acm.org

The APL Skills Database can only work with the enthusiastic
participation of employers seeking APL skills, and employees
seeking APL employment. Please join us in this unique project.

The Toronto APL Special Interest Group
P.O. Box 55, Adelaide St. Post Office
Toronto, Ontario, M5C 2H8, Canada
http://www.torontoapl.org
email: apl_jobs@acm.org or: info@torontoapl.org


*free usually means you can get it for free from the net, or pay small media/documentation charges to get it from the vendor.

Changes/Additions:
sam@kalessin.jpl.nasa.gov

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