OK, I am bored with the usual arguing. Here's something else.

In sorting thru some of the book still on my bookshelf I came across
this interesting vignette.

UNITED STATES
MILITARY ACADEMY
WEST POINT, NEW YORK

APL USER MANUAL

DEPARTMENT OF
GEOGRAPHY & COMPUTER SCIENCE
AY 1981-1982

And, the first lines of the PREFACE:

APL for VAX/VMS : SCI_APL
Operating System: VMS 2.4
Source Language : FORTRAN IV+

Does this ring any bells here? Any chance the FORTRAN IV+ source
is still available anywhere? Not only was this the first VMS I
ever used but it was the second APL and led to a long and pleasant
personal history of playing with APL on everything from the UNIVAC
1100 mainframe down to the Z80 Microcomputer. It would be fun to
try and get it running again on something just for the nostalgia.

bill

Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> APL for VAX/VMS : SCI_APL
> Operating System: VMS 2.4
> Source Language : FORTRAN IV+
>
>Does this ring any bells here? Any chance the FORTRAN IV+ source
>is still available anywhere?

Didn't you ask this about five years back in this very newsgroup?

sci-apl source was on one of the DECUS library tapes. I don't recall
which one or whether it is available online today or not. But the
tape definitely called it "sci-apl" with a hyphen and not an underscore
if that makes it easier to find.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

> APL for VAX/VMS : SCI_APL
> Operating System: VMS 2.4
> Source Language : FORTRAN IV+

Perhaps http://decuslib.com/decus/vax82b/sct/ ?

De

On 8/7/22 13:48, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> APL for VAX/VMS : SCI_APL
>> Operating System: VMS 2.4
>> Source Language : FORTRAN IV+
>>
>> Does this ring any bells here? Any chance the FORTRAN IV+ source
>> is still available anywhere?
>
> Didn't you ask this about five years back in this very newsgroup?

Nope, this manual hasn't been touched in probably 20 years.

>
> sci-apl source was on one of the DECUS library tapes. I don't recall
> which one or whether it is available online today or not. But the
> tape definitely called it "sci-apl" with a hyphen and not an underscore
> if that makes it easier to find.

I'll try searching for that. I thought it was probably a commercial
product. Never thought it might be DECUS. A lot of the DECUS tapes
are available online. (But not all of them. :-( )

bill

Bill Gunshannon pretended :
> OK, I am bored with the usual arguing. Here's something else.
>
> In sorting thru some of the book still on my bookshelf I came across
> this interesting vignette.
>
> UNITED STATES
> MILITARY ACADEMY
> WEST POINT, NEW YORK
>
> APL USER MANUAL
>
> DEPARTMENT OF
> GEOGRAPHY & COMPUTER SCIENCE
> AY 1981-1982
>
> And, the first lines of the PREFACE:
>
> APL for VAX/VMS : SCI_APL
> Operating System: VMS 2.4
> Source Language : FORTRAN IV+
>
> Does this ring any bells here? Any chance the FORTRAN IV+ source
> is still available anywhere? Not only was this the first VMS I
> ever used but it was the second APL and led to a long and pleasant
> personal history of playing with APL on everything from the UNIVAC
> 1100 mainframe down to the Z80 Microcomputer. It would be fun to
> try and get it running again on something just for the nostalgia.
>
> bill

Ah, you're bringing back memories... When I was studying (electrical
engineering) back in 1980, my university was an APL field test site.
APL was a prerequisite for our VAX 780 deal at that time, because we
were using it already on the IBM 360 system that we had before. I still
remember the LA120 terminals with modified keyboards and eproms to
handle the APL special character set. Now that I'm nearing retirement,
I'd love to play with that again.

--
Marc Van Dyck

On 2022-08-08, Marc Van Dyck <marc.gr.vandyck@invalid.skynet.be> wrote:
>
> Ah, you're bringing back memories... When I was studying (electrical
> engineering) back in 1980, my university was an APL field test site.
> APL was a prerequisite for our VAX 780 deal at that time, because we
> were using it already on the IBM 360 system that we had before. I still
> remember the LA120 terminals with modified keyboards and eproms to
> handle the APL special character set. Now that I'm nearing retirement,
> I'd love to play with that again.
>

I know nothing about this language so in the hope of learning something
new, I had a look at the code examples at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)#Examples

I have to say it looks about as readable as TECO code written by
someone on drugs. :-)

What was the usage case ? Was it for quick proof of concept programs
that were then thrown away, so long-term readability was not so important,
or were proper, long-lived, programs written in this language ?

Simon.

PS: Please don't show this to the Rust people. I don't want them
getting ideas. :-)

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 2022-08-08 19:26, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-08-08, Marc Van Dyck <marc.gr.vandyck@invalid.skynet.be> wrote:
>>
>> Ah, you're bringing back memories... When I was studying (electrical
>> engineering) back in 1980, my university was an APL field test site.
>> APL was a prerequisite for our VAX 780 deal at that time, because we
>> were using it already on the IBM 360 system that we had before. I still
>> remember the LA120 terminals with modified keyboards and eproms to
>> handle the APL special character set. Now that I'm nearing retirement,
>> I'd love to play with that again.
>>
>
> I know nothing about this language so in the hope of learning something
> new, I had a look at the code examples at:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)#Examples
>
> I have to say it looks about as readable as TECO code written by
> someone on drugs. :-)
>
> What was the usage case ? Was it for quick proof of concept programs
> that were then thrown away, so long-term readability was not so important,
> or were proper, long-lived, programs written in this language ?
>
> Simon.
>
> PS: Please don't show this to the Rust people. I don't want them
> getting ideas. :-)

I'd say APL is not as unreadable as it first might seem. However, it's
not really a language for computer people, but for mathematicians. It's
crazy powerful for doing math.

Johnny

Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:

> I know nothing about this language so in the hope of learning something
> new, I had a look at the code examples at:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)#Examples

> I have to say it looks about as readable as TECO code written by
> someone on drugs. :-)

> What was the usage case ? Was it for quick proof of concept programs
> that were then thrown away, so long-term readability was not so important,
> or were proper, long-lived, programs written in this language ?

APL on IBM mainframes was large in the financial industry in the 1980s; I had a
friend who worked at several of the big investmanet banks writing APL programs
to do quants.

Over lunch he told me that at his then current firm, a popular sport among the
progrmmers was to come out of their office, grab the next person to walk down
the hall, hand them a one liner, and challenge, "I bet you can't tell me whqt
this does!"

--
Rich Alderson news@alderson.users.panix.com
Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen

On Monday, August 8, 2022 at 2:42:34 PM UTC-4, Rich Alderson wrote:
> Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>
> > I know nothing about this language so in the hope of learning something
> > new, I had a look at the code examples at:
>
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)#Examples
>
> > I have to say it looks about as readable as TECO code written by
> > someone on drugs. :-)
>
> > What was the usage case ? Was it for quick proof of concept programs
> > that were then thrown away, so long-term readability was not so important,
> > or were proper, long-lived, programs written in this language ?
> APL on IBM mainframes was large in the financial industry in the 1980s; I had a
> friend who worked at several of the big investmanet banks writing APL programs
> to do quants.
>
> Over lunch he told me that at his then current firm, a popular sport among the
> progrmmers was to come out of their office, grab the next person to walk down
> the hall, hand them a one liner, and challenge, "I bet you can't tell me whqt
> this does!"
>
> --
> Rich Alderson ne...@alderson.users.panix.com
> Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
> omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
> --Galen
I heard many stories like this in the insurance arena as well. APL was very popular in the actuarial area.

Dan

On 8/8/22 14:42, Rich Alderson wrote:
> Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>
>> I know nothing about this language so in the hope of learning something
>> new, I had a look at the code examples at:
>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)#Examples
>
>> I have to say it looks about as readable as TECO code written by
>> someone on drugs. :-)
>
>> What was the usage case ? Was it for quick proof of concept programs
>> that were then thrown away, so long-term readability was not so important,
>> or were proper, long-lived, programs written in this language ?
>
> APL on IBM mainframes was large in the financial industry in the 1980s; I had a
> friend who worked at several of the big investmanet banks writing APL programs
> to do quants.
>
> Over lunch he told me that at his then current firm, a popular sport among the
> progrmmers was to come out of their office, grab the next person to walk down
> the hall, hand them a one liner, and challenge, "I bet you can't tell me whqt
> this does!"
>

I've had a number of anecdotal experiences with APL.

When I was at West Point as an applications programmer (doing COBOL
and DMS11 on UNIVAC 1100) we got a summer intern from Marist College.
Those of you who know the school know it is just up the street from
IBM. The only language he knew was APL. He had a long and boring
summer.

We had APL on the UNIVAC, too. One of our long time civilian
programmers wrote programs to do statistical analysis on the NY
State Lottery drawings looking for the trick to win. He never
did find one.

We also had APL on the Prime 50-Series minis that I maintained. I
think I was the only one to ever use APL there.

And then we move forward 30 or so years. You probably thought APL
was dead by then, right? Not so. One of my students in Scranton
got an internship with a local brokerage firm. All of their in
house programs were locally written in APL. The student learned APL
and became very interested and did a second summer with them. He
has probably never seen APL again after graduating.

I understand Ken Iverson was the only IBM employee on which the dress
code was never enforced. :-)

bill

On 2022-08-07 18:55, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>
> OK, I am bored with the usual arguing.  Here's something else.
>
> In sorting thru some of the book still on my bookshelf I came across
> this interesting vignette.
>
>     UNITED STATES
>   MILITARY ACADEMY
> WEST POINT, NEW YORK
>
>    APL USER MANUAL
>
>     DEPARTMENT OF
> GEOGRAPHY & COMPUTER SCIENCE
>     AY 1981-1982
>
> And, the first lines of the PREFACE:
>
>      APL for VAX/VMS : SCI_APL
>      Operating System: VMS 2.4
>      Source Language : FORTRAN IV+
>
> Does this ring any bells here?  Any chance the FORTRAN IV+ source
> is still available anywhere?   Not only was this the first VMS I
> ever used but it was the second APL and led to a long and pleasant
> personal history of playing with APL on everything from the UNIVAC
> 1100 mainframe down to the Z80 Microcomputer.  It would be fun to
> try and get it running again on something just for the nostalgia.

Not what you are asking for, but I have APL for RSX. I got my hands on
it a while ago, and had to fix various things in there to make it
compile and run nicely on new versions of RSX.

Originally from DEC, but they released the source, and it's all MACRO-11.

Johnny

On 8/8/22 16:31, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2022-08-07 18:55, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>
>> OK, I am bored with the usual arguing.  Here's something else.
>>
>> In sorting thru some of the book still on my bookshelf I came across
>> this interesting vignette.
>>
>>      UNITED STATES
>>    MILITARY ACADEMY
>> WEST POINT, NEW YORK
>>
>>     APL USER MANUAL
>>
>>      DEPARTMENT OF
>> GEOGRAPHY & COMPUTER SCIENCE
>>      AY 1981-1982
>>
>> And, the first lines of the PREFACE:
>>
>>       APL for VAX/VMS : SCI_APL
>>       Operating System: VMS 2.4
>>       Source Language : FORTRAN IV+
>>
>> Does this ring any bells here?  Any chance the FORTRAN IV+ source
>> is still available anywhere?   Not only was this the first VMS I
>> ever used but it was the second APL and led to a long and pleasant
>> personal history of playing with APL on everything from the UNIVAC
>> 1100 mainframe down to the Z80 Microcomputer.  It would be fun to
>> try and get it running again on something just for the nostalgia.
>
> Not what you are asking for, but I have APL for RSX. I got my hands on
> it a while ago, and had to fix various things in there to make it
> compile and run nicely on new versions of RSX.
>
> Originally from DEC, but they released the source, and it's all MACRO-11.
>

I would love a copy if for no other reason than to read the MACRO-11.
Is it derived from APL-11 from DECUS?

bill

Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>
>I have to say it looks about as readable as TECO code written by
>someone on drugs. :-)
>
>What was the usage case ? Was it for quick proof of concept programs
>that were then thrown away, so long-term readability was not so important,
>or were proper, long-lived, programs written in this language ?

It was written for use by mathematicians who thought of things in terms
of equations and thought of this as a new matrix equation format.

It does have some issues with long-term readability.

Today, Matlab has become almost universal for the kind of work that APL
was initially intended for. And all the stupid things people did wrong
with APL (like using sequential operations when they could use matrix
operations) they now do wrong with Matlab.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Monday, August 8, 2022 at 12:45:20 PM UTC-7, Bill Gunshannon wrote:

(snip)

> I understand Ken Iverson was the only IBM employee on which the dress
> code was never enforced. :-)

Story I heard from people in the physics labs, was that it also wasn't enforced
for physicists. Maybe Ken didn't count them.

Also, as well as I know it, APL was usually used, at least in the earlier years,
with the 2741 terminal. (The 2741 is based on the Selectric typewriter,
and there are APL typeballs for it.)

It is recommended not to wear a tie while using one.

There is a rod inside, that the carriage slides on, that rotates once per character
printed. There are stories of people getting their tie wrapped around that,
with not so good outcome. At 14.8 cps, it doesn't take long.

Ones I knew had a clear plastic guard over the top, but still recommended
not wearing a tie while using one.

On 2022-08-08 22:55, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 8/8/22 16:31, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> Originally from DEC, but they released the source, and it's all MACRO-11.
>
> I would love a copy if for no other reason than to read the MACRO-11.
> Is it derived from APL-11 from DECUS?

As far as I know, yes. DEC submitted APL-11 to DECUS. Seems they stopped
providing it as a product themselves. Which was nice, since it allowed
me to fix a few bugs.

Nothing beats having the sources. :-)

MIM::DU:[APL] on HECnet.

Johnny

Den 2022-08-08 kl. 19:26, skrev Simon Clubley:
> On 2022-08-08, Marc Van Dyck <marc.gr.vandyck@invalid.skynet.be> wrote:
>>
>> Ah, you're bringing back memories... When I was studying (electrical
>> engineering) back in 1980, my university was an APL field test site.
>> APL was a prerequisite for our VAX 780 deal at that time, because we
>> were using it already on the IBM 360 system that we had before. I still
>> remember the LA120 terminals with modified keyboards and eproms to
>> handle the APL special character set. Now that I'm nearing retirement,
>> I'd love to play with that again.
>>
>
> I know nothing about this language so in the hope of learning something
> new, I had a look at the code examples at:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)#Examples
>
> I have to say it looks about as readable as TECO code written by
> someone on drugs. :-)
>
> What was the usage case ? Was it for quick proof of concept programs
> that were then thrown away, so long-term readability was not so important,
> or were proper, long-lived, programs written in this language ?
>
> Simon.
>

I was writing some statistics and reporting APL code for the Ericsson
factory I was working on in the 80's. 3270 terminal with APL keybaord
and fonts in the screen. IBM MVS using TSO/ISPF.

On 2022-08-08, Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> wrote:
>
> I'd say APL is not as unreadable as it first might seem. However, it's
> not really a language for computer people, but for mathematicians. It's
> crazy powerful for doing math.
>

Thanks Johnny (and everyone else).

When you look at it like that, it now makes sense.

Thanks,

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

Den 2022-08-09 kl. 14:52, skrev Simon Clubley:
> On 2022-08-08, Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> wrote:
>>
>> I'd say APL is not as unreadable as it first might seem. However, it's
>> not really a language for computer people, but for mathematicians. It's
>> crazy powerful for doing math.
>>
>
> Thanks Johnny (and everyone else).
>
> When you look at it like that, it now makes sense.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Simon.
>

A nice APL demonstration (game of life):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4

A Soduko solver in 9 APL source lines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmT80OseAGs

> What was the usage case ?

Pretty sure this should read "is the usage case". There's still a lot
of stuff written in APL-derivative languages (e.g. J and K) in use in
finance.

De

gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> writes:

> Also, as well as I know it, APL was usually used, at least in the earlier
> years, with the 2741 terminal. (The 2741 is based on the Selectric
> typewriter, and there are APL typeballs for it.)

At the CAI Lab at UTexas School of Ed, we had APL\360 on 2740 terminals (a much
nicer unit than the 2741, since CR =/= EOT on the 2740).

--
Rich Alderson news@alderson.users.panix.com
Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen