Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail From: sam sirlin Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: APL language FAQ Supersedes: Followup-To: poster Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2018 00:03:29 -0500 (EST) Organization: none Sender: faqserv@xvm-75.mit.edu Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Expires: 20 Feb 2018 05:03:24 GMT Message-ID: Reply-To: swsirlin@earthlink.net Summary: Answers to common questions regarding the computer language APL. X-Last-Updated: 2017/09/23 Lines: 1832 NNTP-Posting-Host: xvm-75.mit.edu X-Trace: 1515906209 senator-bedfellow.mit.edu 15458 18.181.2.75:35293 Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.lang.apl:35297 comp.answers:68297 news.answers:338859 Archive-name: apl-faq Posting-Frequency: monthly Last-modified: Sat Sep 23 14:50:05 PDT 2017 APL Frequently Asked Questions (well some, anyway) Maintained by S.W. Sirlin Thanks to the many people who have contributed to this list. 9/23/2017 Q'Nial update. 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 [10/2015 gone]. 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 1979 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. Check out some of the web links or books listed below for more information. Wikipedia has a good overview as well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language). 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. What about Unicode? 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/faqs/, 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+ (aplus) 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/projects/aplus/ http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AplInDebian A wiki describing using A+ under Debian, in emacs to get the fonts. The BAA has had some success in porting to Windows, see http://www.vector.org.uk 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: swsirlin@earthlink.net) email: mcain@advtech.uswest.com. APL92 APL92 (Mac, system 7.1), older APL90: ftp://ftp.emse.fr/pub/lang/apl/[dead 12/2005] Jean-Jacques Girardot School Mines St-Etienne, France email: girardot@cambur.emse.fr APLette [6/16/2010] APLette is a java program written by L. Paris that implements much of the language See http://lparis45.free.fr/apl.html APL2000, APL+Win (formerly STSC)[7/2016] APL+Win (for Windows 2000 and newer), APL+WebServices, APLNext Supervisor, APLNext Database Interface Tools APLNow LLC d.b.a. APL2000 One Research Ct., Suite 325 Rockille, MD USA 20850 Main Tel: (301) 208-7150 Sales Tel: (301) 208-7150, Sales Fax: (301) 208-7151 Support Tel: (301) 208-7217, Support Fax: (301) 208-7151 Consulting Services Tel: (301) 208-7150 email: sales@apl2000.com support@apl2000.com consult@apl2000.com http://www.APL2000.com Canadian Distributor: APL Borealis Inc. P.O. Box 183 Lindsay, Ontario Canada K9V 4S1 Tel: 1-705-328-1681 email: info@aplborealis.com http://www.aplborealis.com International Dealers: http://www.apl2000.com/intldealers.php APLX (was APL.68000)[8/2016] APLX is no longer available from MicroAPL, however Dyalog is hosting free downloads of the final (version 5.0) APLX installation packages and documentation WWW: http://www.dyalog.com/aplx.htm APLSE APLSE/LRNAPLSE (APL*PLUS v10 freeware, PCDOS, W95/98, NT, runs under DOSBox, Android): APLSE is a version of Manugistics/STSC's PC APL, available with very little documentation. It can be found at http://plj.myfreesites.net/APLse http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/languages/apl/apl-plus/ http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/apl_archives/apl/apl-plus/index.html http://www.dosbox.com/DOSBox, a DOS emulator for Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD It is available for Android by GEMESYS at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.gemesys.android.aplse 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 Tel: 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 http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/apl_archives/apl/CAP/index.html This used to serve the code and still has some information, but the links don't seem to work anymore. The manual and BeOS port are available below. I have the Unix packages. [12/2015] http://www.apl2.de/ Possible future development https://web.archive.org/web/20130207235225/http://double.co.nz/beos/apl.htm The BeOS port. http://files.mpoli.fi/software/PROGRAMM/GENERAL/CAP_MAN.PSManual 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 [4/2014] APL-11 (PDP), VAX APL V4.0: Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was bought by Compaq in 1998, which was bought by HP in 2002. The APL products seem to be no longer available. Note that some code is available from http://www.trailing-edge.com including binaries for APLSF, and the source code for APL-11. Dyalog APL [8/2016] Dyalog APL (Windows Vista onwards, AIX, Linux, Mac OS X, Raspberry Pi). Available free for educational use. Source: Dyalog Ltd. Minchens Court, Minchens Lane, Bramley Hampshire RG26 5BH, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1256 830 030 http://www.dyalog.com Email : sales@dyalog.com Resellers: http://www.dyalog.com/resellers.htm FreeAPL IBM PC, MS Windows, version of APL\11 Tauno Ylinen, email: tylinen@mits.mdata.fi Glee Glee is an APL descendent, for MS Windows http://withglee.com/ GNU APL GNU APL is a free interpreter APL. Should compile under most unix, windows under CYGWIN. A Linux RPM and Debian package are available. The APL interpreter is an (almost) complete implementation of ISO standard 13751 aka. Programming Language APL, Extended. The APL interpreter has implemented: o nested arrays and related functions o complex numbers, and o a shared variable interface In addition, GNU APL can be scripted. GNU APL was written and is being maintained by Jurgen Sauermann. http://www.gnu.org/software/apl/ http://www.gnu.org/software/apl/Community.html I-APL IBM PC, Mac, some other PCs, runs under DOSBox (free*): https://sites.google.com/site/baavector/interpreters APL interpreters, including I-APL In the US (may require lots of patience): Edward M. Cherlin Co-Chairman, I-APL Limited 6611 Linville Drive Weed, California, USA 96094-9763 Tel: (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 [11/09] 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 Tel: 408-463-APL2 (408-463-2752), FAX: 408-463-4488 email: apl2@vnet.ibm.com web page:http://www.ibm.com forum:https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=2104 documentation:http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/apl/library.html ftp site: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 APL2 Version 2 (CMS, TSO) is Program Number 5688-228 APL2 Application Environment for CMS/TSO is Program Number 5688-229 INCA INCA [4/2014], A tiny APL-style array calculator/interpreter in C based on the J-incunabulum https://github.com/luser-dr00g/inca J J (for Linux, Mac, Windows, WindowsCE) [7/2008], Produced by: Jsoftware Inc. http://www.jsoftware.com email: info@jsoftware.com An early version of J (J7, about 1994) is available on waterloo. Early inspiration came from an interpreter fragment from Arthur Whitney http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Essays/Incunabulum K K, Kdb; an APL derivative for Solaris, Linux, Windows Kx Systems http://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 Tel: (914) 682-0377 version 1.13 ftp://ftp.uwtc.washington.edu/pub/Mac/Programming/Languages/ [10/2015 dead] (no longer: ftp://ftp.ens.fr/pub/mac/hqx/ ) MVT for APL [12/2015] MVT for APL Version 2.00 is a resurrection of APL\360, an old IBM APL together with OS/360 needed to run it. Apparently runs on Windows, OSX, or Linux. This is possible since IBM have licensed the source code of APL\360-OS Version 1, Modification 1 to the Computer History Museum. See the extensive instructions in the manual. http://wotho.ethz.ch/mvt4apl-2.00/ Put together by Jürgen Winkelmann email: winkelmann@id.ethz.ch NARS2000 [7/2009] NARS2000 is a freely available open source APL interpreter for Windows 2000 and later versions as well as various versions of Linux using Wine (http://www.winehq.org/) as a translation layer. NARS2000 is an Experimental APL Interpreter being worked on by members of the APL community. Available in 32 bit and 64 bit versions. http://www.nars2000.org email:sitemaster@nars2000.org wiki:http://wiki.nars2000.org Forums: http://forums.nars2000.org ngn APL [7/2014] An APL implemented in CoffeeScript. Runs on NodeJS or in a browser. In development. https://github.com/ngn/apl Demo: http://ngn.github.io/apl/web/ 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 Now (7/2005) in development at sourceforge by Peter Jeremy (mangled mail address: pzextcevrbjeremy@zxcvb.optushome.com.au): http://sourceforge.net/projects/openapl/ Parrot APL [11/2006] APL is one of the languages part of the parrot project - a generic interpreter backend with more than 30 languages included (Perl, Ruby Basic, Scheme etc). GPL (free source). Unix +. http://www.parrotcode.org/ Q'Nial [9/23/2017] Q'Nial is a highly portable interpreter for Nial originally developed at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada in the early 1980s. NIAL stands for the Nested Interactive Array Language, a hybrid language combining a functional array language based on Trenchard More's mathematical treatment of nested arrays called Array Theory, with a procedural language with familiar control structures. Q'Nial is open source, with versions available for Unix and Windows. NIAL Systems Limited 601-2 Bay St. Kingston, Ontario K7K 6T7 email: nialsys@gmail.com Source and binary versions are available on github: http://www.github.com/danlm/QNial7. The version 7 release provides documentation on Q'Nial and tools to extend the language by incorporating other open software packages. SHARP APL SHARP APL (MVS, AIX, SunOS, Solaris, Linux, Android [4/15]) Sharp APL for Linux is free for personal use. sAPL for Android devices by GEMESYS Ltd. is available from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.gemesys.android.sapl Other products are Viewpoint, LOGOS, Mailbox Soliton Associates Limited (Formerly I. P. Sharp Associates) 44 Victoria St, Suite 2100 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5C 1Y2 Tel: (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 Tel: (716) 256-6466, Fax: (716) 256-6469 Soliton Associates Limited Havsgaardsvej 4 2900 Hellerup Copenhagen, Denmark Tel: +45 2621 6099, Fax: +45 3940 1641 email: benoit_paquin@soliton.com WatAPL Watcom [4/2014] Watcom developed a variety of languages including APL in the early 1980s. Some are now becomming open source at OpenWatcom. Watcom APL by GEMESYS Ltd. is a free, full featured APL for Android. See the google play store or https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.gemesys.android.watapl (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 Tel: 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. Tel: 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 PuTTY http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ A free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Windows and Unix platforms. Can be used as an APL terminal emulator when used in conjunction with the APL385 font and the Dyalog UnicodeIME (available from http://www.dyalog.com/apl-font-keyboard.htm). RUMBA RUMBA (for 3270, APL and graphics) Wall Data 17769 NE 78th Place Redmond WA 98052-4992 206-883-4777 Apparently available here:https://www.attachmate.com/products/rumba+/. 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 (dtterm) for SunOS 4 and Solaris 2 which emulates an IBM 3179G APA colour graphics terminal. Part of CDE, so probably obsolete. TN3270 [2/2010] TN3270 (Macintosh) Not public domain, but may be freely distributed. Works with TCP/IP See the homepage at Brown http://www.brown.edu/cis/tn3270/ May also be here? ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ BITNET distribution from LISTSERV@BROWNVM: Send LISTSERV the command GET TN3270 PACKAGE. GET LOCAL FILELIST for a complete list of available files. x3270 [2/2010] x3270 for Unix systems (Linux, Solaris,...) A free 327x emulator with APL support. Get the source from http://x3270.bgp.nu/download.html, or see the home page at http://x3270.bgp.nu/. An older version is here ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/applications. 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 http://www.uic.edu/depts/adn/infwww/txt/v3113001.txt 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 Dyalog keyboard US, UK and Danish available. Other languages would be considered if the demand was great enough. Contact Dyalog for more information. 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://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~budd/ and look under books. (latest C++ version unavailable?) Sam Sirlin's current modification of Budd's older aplc o ported to Solaris, Freebsd, Atari, Linux, Dec Alpha o support for most of ISO APL, control structures, boxed arrays o support for hypercomplex numbers (ordinary complex, quaternions, octonions) v5.12 is stable version (mostly flat APL) v6.18 is the development version (anonymous fns, more operator support) See http://home.earthlink.net/~swsirlin/apl.html or send mail to swsirlin@earthlink.net 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) Co-dfns [9/4/2016] The Co-dfns project aims to provide a high-performance, high-reliability compiler for a parallel extension of the Dyalog dfns programming language. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2627384, Co-dfns: Ancient Language, Modern Compiler http://arcfide.github.io/Co-dfns/ PLJsAPL Paul Jackson's Free APL compiler, written in .net, is available from http://plj.myfreesites.net/PLJsAPL A list of references on APL compilation is available ftp://archive.uwaterloo.ca/languages/apl/bibliography/compilers.html[dead 3/2006] (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 Tel: +358 9 70028820, Fax: +358 9 70028824 email: dinosoft@dinosoft.fi >http://www.dinosoft.fi/[10/2015 dead] IEDIT (APL2 editor),AFM file system,APL2 tools[dead 3/2006] Interprocess Systems, Inc. Insight Systems [dead 10/2015] 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. [SQAPL seems to be available from Dyalog now.] Computer Aided Instruction Computer Aided Instruction, for PC or mainframe IBM. Also a newsletter. Zark Incorporated 23 Ketchbrook Lane Ellington CT 06029 USA Converting CSV files to APL Some functions for converting Comma-Separated-Value (CSV) files (e.g. from spreadsheets such as excell) to APL http://aplwiki.com/CsvToApl (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 http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/apl_archives/apl/fonts[4/2009] o Truetype fonts for windows are available from ISI. o Dyalog fonts are Adrian Smith's APL385 (and APL333) fonts, free download at http://www.dyalog.com/apl-font-keyboard.htm 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 Houle has made a DOS window font file suitable for use with old STSC APL's available here [5/17/04]: http://paulhoule.com 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 http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/apl_archives/apl/apl-plus/index.html and (with APLSE) [5/05]: http://plj.myfreesites.net/APLse o A variety of fonts and tools is available from Vector: https://sites.google.com/site/baavector/fonts o Emacs can display APL fonts, see http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AplInDebian o Unicode fonts such as https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/ can display APL glyphs (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 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 Web Sites: o ACM SIGAPL - information about the ACM, SIGAPL, related organizations, conferences, Internet resources, and the APL White Pages. [10/2015 no longer available] o AFAPL - French APL users group. http://www.afapl.asso.fr o APL Quotations and Anecdotes. http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLQA.htm o APLSmith - a variety of tools from all major APL vendors. Web server written in APL. http://aplsmith.com 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 A Programming Language (APL/J/K, The Movie), the movie blog http://www.aprogramminglanguage.com/ 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 Team Ltd - German distributor of Dyalog APL http://aplteam.de and http://aplteam.com They have a general wiki on APL at http://aplwiki.com/ o The Brighton University Resource Kit for Students, produced by John English (with various APL resources) http://burks.bton.ac.uk [dead 10/2015] o Bernard Houben's site, Inverted Data Analyser, Dyalog APL http://home.wanadoo.nl/houb/IDA.htm [10/2015 dead] o Dyalog Ltd. Home Page [9/2012]: http://www.dyalog.com o Eke van Batenburg's APL webpage: http://www.ekevanbatenburg.nl/PRVAPL.HTML o FinnAPL, Tauno Ylinen's FREEAPL for Windows, a couple of Dyalog workspaces, and APL idioms list http://www.finnapl.fi o Free APL Compilers and Interpreters (page title, actually only interpreters are listed). Currently [3/2010] includes links to J, APLSE, A+, OpenAPL, FreeAPL, APLX, APL!. http://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/apl.shtml o Conrad Hoesle-Kienzlen's web page [dead 6/2009], CHK IT-Consulting http://www.hoesle-kienzlen.de o Google groups: J discussions http://groups.google.com/group/J-Programming o The IBM 1130 - including a simulator for this HW on a modern machine, and APL\1130. http://ibm1130.org/ 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 K. Smillie's Home page; Various information for J, Beginning J, J and statistics http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~smillie/ o MicroAPL Limited http://www.microapl.co.uk 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://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Languages/APL/ o Openhere Network - Web search engine written in APL http://openhere.com/ [10/2015 dead] o Porting Mind.forth to APL http://mind.sourceforge.net/apl.html o Q'Nial - a similar array language http://www.nial.com/ o Rex Swain's APL Information http://www.rexswain.com/aplinfo.html o Rubick's Cube in APL http://www.nyx.net/~anon84c2/ o Remembering APL - a short introduction. Some good information on glyphs used by some dialects. http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/aplint.htm o Soliton's web page http://www.soliton.com (Main Page) o Toronto APL SIG - Activities of Toronto members. http://www.torontoapl.ca[8/2007] o TryAPL - Try APL online [9/2012] http://www.tryapl.org o Vector/BAA web sites http://www.vector.org.uk (maintained by Ray Cannon, now redirects below) https://sites.google.com/site/baavector/ https://sites.google.com/site/baavector/interpreters good list of interpreters o The Waterloo Archives. The University of Waterloo, Canada. L.J. Dickey's collection. Lots of J/APL archives. http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/apl_archives/Welcome.html[back up 3/2006] Some APL draft standards are kept here, for example the Committee Draft 1 of the APL ANSI/ISO standard http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/apl_archives/apl/standards/cd1/ o Jim Weigang's Home Page - Newsreader etc. http://www.chilton.com/~jimw/ o Wiki -- websites that allows visitors to add, remove, and edit content o General APL Wiki from the German distributor of Dyalog APL http://aplwiki.com/ o J Wiki http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki o Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language). 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 J mail list, archive 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 http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/apl_archives/apl/Welcome.html 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; seems to be out of service 2/2004?] operated by Robert G. Brown On-Line at http://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 [10/2015 no longer published] o BestWebBuys is a commercial site with a list of programming books and specifically APL books available [11/2006]: http://www.bestwebbuys.com/Programming_Languages-General-books.html bestwebbuys programming languages link http://www.bestwebbuys.com/Programming_Languages-General-N_10006038-books.html bestwebbuys APL link 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 [seems dead 11/2006] 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 another list online see: http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/apl_archives/apl/bibliography/index.htmlNot fully working yet [11/2006] 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 Ajay Askoolum, "System Building with APL + WIN," Wiley, ISBN: 0-470-03020-8, August 2006. Available at http://www.amazon.com/System-Building-APL-WIN-RSP/dp/0470030208 and other sources. 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 IBM online references: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/apl/library.html 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. E. Iverson, Algebra : an algorithmic treatment, APL Press 1977, Copyright 1972 by Addison Wesley, Preliminary Edition entitled "Elementary Algebra" Copyright 1971 by IBM Corporation. o K. E. Iverson, Elementary analysis, APL press 1976, Preliminary Edition "Elementary Functions" Copyright 1974 by IBM Corporation ISBN 0-917326-01-6 o K. E. Iverson, An introduction to APL for Scientists and Engineers, APL Press 1976, First published by IMB Corporation as Technical Report No 320-3019 March 1973 - ISBN 0-917326-04-0 o K. E. Iverson, APL in exposition, APL Press 1976, First published by IBM Corporation as Technical Report No 320-3010 March 1973 - ISBN 0-917326-02-4. o K. E. Iverson, Introduction To APL, (1984-APL Press Palo Alto) ISBN 0-917326-14-8. o K. E. Iverson, "A personal view of APL," IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 30, No. 4, 1991. o K. E. 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 Bernard Legrand, "Mastering Dyalog APL - A Complete Introduction to Dyalog APL," ISBN-10: 0956463800 / ISBN-13: 978-0956463807 Available for download from http://www.dyalog.com/mastering-dyalog-apl.htm, or can be purchased from Amazon (see link on http://www.dyalog.com/intro/). 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 D. Stiers, M.J. Goovaerts, J. De Kerf, "APL - The Language and its Actuarial Applications" 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 CALL FOR PAPERS [8/30/2005] APL QUOTE QUAD The next issue of APL Quote Quad is being designed. Prospective authors are encouraged to submit papers on any of the usual subjects of interest related to Array-Processing Languages (APL, APL2, J, and so forth). Submitted papers, in Microsoft Word (.doc), Rich Text Format (.rtf), Openoffice format (.scw), Latex (.tex) or Acrobat (.pdf) should be addressed to Manuel Alfonseca Manuel.Alfonseca@uam.es with copy to: Antonio Annibali Antonio.Annibali@uniroma1.it and Mario Sacco mario.sacco@acm.org Care must be taken to make the submitted papers self-contained, eg. if they require special APL typesettings. The tentative time limit for the new material is September 30th, 2005. APLBUG [10/12/2013] APL Bay Area Users Group, Northern California ACM SIGAPL Meets irregularly. Chairman:Chuck Kennedy (408)241-2920 Charles-Kennedy@comcast.net Vice Chairman:Charles Schulz caschulz@earthlink.net Secretary/Treasurer:Curtis Jones 228 South 15th Street San Jose, CA 95112-2150 curtis_jones@ieee.org 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 (8/2016) 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 http://britishaplassociation.co.uk/ 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 Denmark APL Special Interest Group of the Danish Data Association (DDA) [4/2000] Helene Boesen email: hb@insight.dk Dutch APL User Group [perhaps defunct? 8/2010] 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 Dyalog APL Groups [8 2016] There is some updated information on current user groups at http://www.dyalog.com/user-groups.htm AFAPL (1/2005) 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:Jacques Bouchard General Secretary:Ludmila Lemagnen email: lemagnen@aol.com www: http://www.afapl.asso.fr APL Germany [10/2010] c/o Dr. Reiner Nussbaum Buchernerstr. 78 D-69259 Mannheim, GERMANY Tel: +49 621 7152190 email: info@apl-germany.de web: http://apl-germany.de 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 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/[dead 12/2005] SOCAL-SIGAPL SOCAL-SIGAPL Southern California APL user's group. Inactive. [7/2004] 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 Tel: +358 9 1512164, Fax: +358 9 1512496 http://www.finnapl.fi/ 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: 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 Tel: +61 2 257 5742 Toronto ACM APL SIG Toronto ACM APL SIG [8/2007] http://www.torontoapl.ca Chair: Dan King email: danking(at)sympatico(dot)ca Secretary: Richard Procter email: rjp(at)aplborealis(dot)com (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 Customer Conference The 2000 APL2000 Customer Conference http://www.apl2000.com/2008UserConference.php The Annual ACM SigAPL Conference [No longer held] Previous ACM SigAPL Conferences APL2002: Array Processing Languages Lore, Problems and Applications, July 22-25, 2002, Madrid, Spain. APL2001: An Arrays Odyssey, June 25-28, 2001, Yale University, New Haven, CT, U.S.A. APL Berlin 2000: The 2000 International Conference on Array Programming Languages Think Arrays in a Great City, July 24-27, 2000 - Berlin, Germany APL99: The 1999 International Conference on all Array Programming Languages August 10-14, 1999 - University of Scranton, Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA 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. Dyalog User Meeting See http://www.dyalog.com/user-meetings/index.htm SIGAPL Software Library All Conference Packages, for all years, will be available from SIGAPL and the Waterloo Archives at http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/apl_archives/apl/Welcome.html[partially back 3/2006] (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 some 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, 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: Dyalog includes User Commands for workspace transfer; these are documented in the Workspace Transfer Guide, supplied with Dyalog APL. o APLX reportedly provides )IN and )OUT commands compatible with APL2/PC and APL2/370. o NARS2000 also supports migration through .atf files written out by )OUT and read in by )IN. 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. o VisualAPL from APL2000 provides two simple options for importing APL code from legacy APL's: o Select the APL code in the source APL's session and Paste Special it into VisualAPL in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005/2008. o An ActiveX component is provided with VisualAPL to en masse convert the legacy APL code to Unicode and store it in a text file which can be used by VisualAPL. VisualAPL does not use a proprietary workspace format for storing APL code, instead it stores APL code in Unicode text files which can be run as interpreted APL scripts or as compiled APL .Net classes using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005/2008. VisualAPL Unicode text files can also be directly compiled without Visual Studio using the command line compiler provided with the Microsoft .Net framework. VisualAPL does not use a proprietary APL 'session', but instead uses the mainstream Microsoft Visual Studio 2005/2008 IDE [Interactive Development Environment]. 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 APL characters : o Jim Weigang has proposed a verbose version that is probably the current standard. http://www.chilton.com/~jimw/a2apapr1.html Example: s {<-} +/ {rho} , a Transliteration programs for many APL's are available at http://www.chilton.com/~jimw/a2ardme.html [this link works, but the program links point to inaccessible parts of waterloo... this currently gets to real programs: http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/apl_archives/apl/software-library/apl95/] o My own approach is a bit more terse - see aplc, 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 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. See J. Mitlohner (1992), Porting APL Programs via ASCII Transliteration. APL Quote Quad, 23(1):148-155. o Jim Weigang proposes the more familiar "Del editor" output format. Sample code for this translator is available in this format. (14) Q:What about Unicode? A: Writing APL in Unicode This section needs some work Unicode (http://www.unicode.org/) was conceived as a way of storing data in any of the worlds languages. This includes APL. Most modern computer OS seem to support this. Most modern APLs natively support unicode now. Of course fonts are needed, and programs that can display/interact with the data. Most (all?) fonts are incomplete, as there are a lot of glyphs need to represent everything, so of course many don't include all APL characters (or Devanagari, Tibetan,...). o Phil Chastney has written an article and included a Unicode font with APL characters http://www.vector.org.uk o Markus Triska has some notes on APL/Unicode at http://www.metalevel.at/unicapl/ Included there is an apl.el file for Emacs, that allows entering unicode charaters using apl-ascii. o Adrian Smith's unicode font apl385 along with other information and fonts is available at http://www.vector.org.uk. *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: swsirlin@earthlink.net This list is not authorized or supported by the US government or NASA or Caltech or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Nor is any other organization or individual living or dead or gone beyond responsible in any official or legal way. 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