Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mandrill!zhmti!dietz
From: dietz@zhmti.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Subject: Re: APL for PC-AT clones
Message-ID: <1794@zhmti.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Oct-87 08:40:18 EST
Article-I.D.: zhmti.1794
Posted: Wed Oct 28 08:40:18 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Nov-87 05:41:12 EST
References: <2356@umn-cs.UUCP> <1039@cup.portal.com> <2410@umn-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: dietz@zhmti.UUCP (Dieter H. Zebbedies)
Organization: Zebb-Hoff Machine Tool Inc's Automated Mfg. Project, Cleve., OH
Lines: 68
Keywords: bsd release tape apl

In article <2410@umn-cs.UUCP> amit writes:
>There is at least one free APL, in the contributed software in the Unix
>4.[23]bsd distribution tape. The version I have access to is a rather old
>one, and not particularly impressive.  Nevertheless, it is free, and all
>the sources are avilable. I don't know to what extent it is system
>dependent. I also don't know if there are newer versions.  It was
>developed in Purdue-EE in the early 80's (at best...). Will someone from
>Purdue-EE shed some light?...

You're right on most counts.  The original author was Ken Thompson at
Bell, Purdue inherited it.  See the enclosed README from the release.
BTW, There are mods to the BSD release tape version that fix some null
pointer derefs and that get the floating point to do the Right Things.
(w.r.t.  IEEE model, 68k's)

It is free.  It is not that impressive.  It does work.  It's probably
not really worth hacking.  Ken Thompson wrote it before stdio existed,
so the comment about "rather old" in the quote is an understatement
(yes, Virginia, there are sources that are predate stdio), It plays
all sorts of games and tricks with IO, although Purdue seems to have
hacked that for some of their own terminal support.  Don't touch any
of the stdio routines either (so that ld brings these in) or we
conflict. (i.e.  they don't work well together)

Most of the work after Bruner was done by Ken Yap (ken@cs.rochester.edu)
(Hi Ken!) with some further hacking by us here at zhmti (not much)...
Ken and I never have gotten around to giving back the patches to
Berzerkeley....  When I contacted John at LLL, he refered me to Ken,
since he had not touched the stuff in quite some time... 

-----Included File: ~src/apl/README----------------------------------------
Title:		APL

Authors:	John D. Bruner
		Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
		P.O. Box 808, L-276
		Livermore, CA  94550
		(415) 422-0758

		Prof. Anthony P. Reeves
		Cornell University, Phillips Hall
		Ithaca, NY  14853
		(607) 256-4296

Description:

This is Purdue/EE's APL, which runs on both PDP-11's and VAX-11/780's.
This APL originally was written by Ken Thompson at Bell.  It went to
Yale for a while, and came to Purdue via a Chicago distribution in (I
think) 1976.  Jim Besemer (now with Tektronix in Oregon) made many
of the extensions to the original V6 PDP-11 version, including
quad I/O functions, the state indicator, internal label processing,
and a number of primitive functions.  I began support of APL when
Jim left in 1978 and have been handling it since then.

The driving force behind all of the development and maintenance of APL
at Purdue has been my major professor, Dr. Anthony P. Reeves.  Please
forward bugs/comments/suggestions to Dr. Reeves or to me (UUCP site
"pur-ee", login names "reeves" and "bruner").

[...install notes deleted -- dietz]

-----End of Included File--------------------------------------------------
Dieter H. Zebbedies ('dee-ter  ayech  'zeb-ed-eez)
 Zebb-Hoff Mach. Tool's Automated Manufacturing Project Cleveland, OH
 (USnail): 9535 Clinton Rd, Cleveland, OH 44144 (+216 631 6100) (+216 741-5994)
 (UUCP): ...{decvax,sun,cbosgd}!mandrill!zhmti!dieter
 (CSNET/ARPA/BITNET): dieter@mandrill.CWRU.EDU