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From: ljdickey@water.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Subject: Re: APL for PC-AT clones
Message-ID: <1174@water.waterloo.edu>
Date: Sat, 17-Oct-87 13:34:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: water.1174
Posted: Sat Oct 17 13:34:31 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Oct-87 13:46:08 EDT
References: <2356@umn-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: ljdickey@water.waterloo.edu (Lee Dickey)
Distribution: world
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 52

In article <2356@umn-cs.UUCP> amit@umn-cs.UUCP (Neta Amit) writes:
> ...
> 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 have their [Nial's] address in Kingston; do you have their phone #, by
> any chance?
> 

Try Nial Systems, Kingston, Ontario: 1-613-549-1432

> - 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.
 
I don't know either.  I do not have their address with me.  The company
is in a suburb of Detroit, I think.

> - 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?
 
So many questions, I can not answer them all.  From your shopping list,
it sounds like you are already using an advanced product.   You will
find no PD product like this.

Sharp APL has, by far, the most complete APL for the PC.  From them,
you get the  *full*  mainframe implementation, complete with an
emulator for the 370 instruction set, all for a micro pricetag.  They
have even emulated the "large-number" arithmetic anomalies [bugs?] that
were present in the 360 and perpetrated in later products of that
line.  The idea is that results on the micro should be exactly the same
as the results on the production system.  For a while, they gave it
away for $100, but I think they charge something more for it now.
People did not believe that it was the complete system for that price.
I think it is a wonderful bargain.

I.P.Sharp Associates keeps offices in a lot of major cities throughout
the world, so it is possible that there is an office of near you, but
if not, call them in Toronto at their main number, 1-(416)-364-5361.

-- 
 L. J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo. 
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