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From: amit@umn-cs.UUCP (Neta Amit)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Subject: APL for PC-AT clones
Message-ID: <2356@umn-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Oct-87 14:50:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: umn-cs.2356
Posted: Wed Oct 14 14:50:42 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Oct-87 04:49:24 EDT
Reply-To: amit@umn-cs.UUCP (Neta Amit)
Organization: University of Minnesota
Lines: 46

I have a question for the active members of this newsgroup (Lee Dickey?),
that has probably been discussed a thousand times. Post your response on
this newsgroup, or mail directly to me.  Here goes:

I'm looking for a PD (unlikely) or commercial (several hundred $) APL
product for the AT, under either MS-DOS or any form of Unix, that will
have the following similarities to IBM's APL2:

1. Will be able to apply system-defined operators to user-defined functions
2. Will allow user-defined operators (and obviously to apply them to any fun)
3. Has the Bracket operator, which I find indispensible!
4. Supports nested arrays -- but this is really of less importance, except
   in the context of (3).

- I checked with STSC; their PC product doesn't support anything of the
above.  Their Unix product supports just nested arrays, which are not
terribly important to me.

- Being also a Lisp (Scheme) programmer, Q'Nial may be appealing.  If its
cost (for Univ P.O.) is not steep, I'd consider it as a second package to
get -- but not as the first: I prefer the standard APL notation and
keyboard. I have their address in Kingston; do you have their phone #, by
any chance?

- As far as I can remember, MIPS Software Development, of Michigan,
marketed DYALOG APL from Dyadic Systems of UK. I have no idea if they have
a PC product (DOS/Xenix), and if it satisfies my requirements.

- Same question about I.P. Sharp; here I have neither their address
nor their phone#...

- IBM. Do they have their own APL2 product for the AT? Is it complete,
i.e. the same as their mainframe APL2?  Who should I contact about this?

- Any other implementation??

Any info about features and limitations, performance, support, stability
of the product, hardware and software requirements, (discounted?) prices,
addresses and telephone numbers will be greatly appreciated. Better yet,
I'll be most interested in your personal experience.

Thanx in advance,
-- 
  Neta Amit 
  U of Minnesota CSci
  Arpanet: amit@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu