Turing Machine in APL
Eric Smith
Marvin Minsky write a Turing Machine simulator as a one-liner in APL.
Does anyone have a copy?
And I apologize if it's a FAQ, but has anyone put together a collection
of one-liners?
I originally posting this to comp.lang.apl, and it's been suggested that
a.f.c might be a more likely place to find out. Also, David Ness said:
> It's not that I would ever claim that Jerry may exaggerate from time
> to time, but I don't remember Marvin as ever talking much other than
> Lisp, at least in the early Project Mac days.
Heinz W. Wiggeshoff
Eric Smith (eric-no-s...@brouhaha.com) writes:
> Back in December 1983, Jerry Pournelle mentioned in Byte that he had seen
> Marvin Minsky write a Turing Machine simulator as a one-liner in APL.
>
> Does anyone have a copy?
Not at hand, BUT, in A Programming Language by Kenneth E. Iverson,
John Wiley and Sons Inc. c/r 1962 Lib. of Congress 62-15180,
Chapter 2 Microprogramming
(whew) there are many lines of pre-APL describing the IBM 7090
instructions simulation.
Turing doesn't show in the index.
Charles Richmond
in APL. Way back in the late '70's, I knew some EE grad students taking
computer design. Their textbook used a language almost identical to APL,
call AHPL (a hardware programming language). The idea was that you designed
the computer by writing AHPL programs describing the functions you wanted
implemented. The compiler then created circuits as output that would implement
these functions *in hardware*.
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond <rich...@plano.net> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Jim Saum
>I read somewhere that the IBM 360 also had a complete discription done
>in APL. ...
Falkoff, Iverson, and Sussenguth, "A Formal Description of
System/360", IBM Systems Journal, vol 3, pp. 198-262, 1964.
- Jim Saum
Lord Xarph and his Orchestra
>
> Back in December 1983, Jerry Pournelle mentioned in Byte that he had seen
> Marvin Minsky write a Turing Machine simulator as a one-liner in APL.
Off-topic, but now that Pournelle has been mentioned, I seem to recall an
archive of postings from The Early Days(tm) when Jerry Pournelle got kicked
off arpanet. Not shown, IIRC, was the reasoning and the methodology for giving
Pournelle the boot. If it WAS shown, then I couldn't comprehend it.
Does anyone remember this incident?
-Lx? (Watches Jerry himself post the followup....)
--
Lord Xarph
xa...@blueneptune.com
http://www.xarph.net/
Bureaucracy fears me.
Tim Shoppa
> Off-topic, but now that Pournelle has been mentioned, I seem to recall an
> archive of postings from The Early Days(tm) when Jerry Pournelle got kicked
> off arpanet. Not shown, IIRC, was the reasoning and the methodology for giving
> Pournelle the boot. If it WAS shown, then I couldn't comprehend it.
> Does anyone remember this incident?
I'm including "How Jerry Pournelle Got Kicked off the Arpanet" below.
It's a file I picked up from the public area on MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
in the mid/late 1980's. Like all of history before 1995 or so, this
happened before the WWW, so it's not surprising it's hard to find
this sort of information on the web.
It isn't explicitly spelled out in the article exactly what Jerry
Pournelle did "wrong", but from having exchanged E-mails with several
of the folks mentioned below, I think it comes down to two things:
1. Jerry Pournelle mentioned Arpanet in BYTE as a neat toy. It
was worried that the general public - or, even worse, congresspeople -
would think that ARPA funding was being spent on neat toys for
the general public, something that his MILNET TAC access certainly
wasn't intended for.
2. The disagreement quickly turned into a flame war, emotions got
high on both sides, harsh words were said, and Pournelle got plonked.
Read the archive below, consisting of actual E-mail exchanges, and
form your own opinion on the subject!
Tim. (sho...@trailing-edge.com)
HOW JERRY POURNELLE GOT KICKED OFF THE ARPANET
This file explains why Jerry Pournell <POU...@MIT-MC.ARPA (ex-tm)> is
no longer on the ARPANet. It's in chronological order. I hope this
clears up any misunderstanding and confusion that may exist.
Date: 19 January 1984 00:50 EST
From: Christopher C. Stacy <CSTACY @ MIT-MC>
Subject: TACACS
To: REM @ MIT-MC, BANDY @ MIT-MC, DEVON @ MIT-MC, DIGEX @ MIT-MC,
JURGEN @ MIT-MC, PINTO @ MIT-MC, POURNE @ MIT-MC, KFL @ MIT-MC,
STEVEH @ MIT-MC, GUMBY @ MIT-MC, IAN @ SRI-NIC
cc: USER-ACCOUNTS @ MIT-MC
Hi,
I didn't see your original messages, and I don't know how the NIC got
into the loop, but I am indeed the person to answer your questions.
Apparently you have encountered TAC access control (TACACS) on your
favorite MILNET TAC. TACACS is a login system based on encrpytion
codes recorded on little paper cards which authorized MILNET TAC
users
are being issued. To be a MILNET TAC user, you must have a personal
TACACS account and be issued one of these cards, so that you can type
your login code to the TAC and make it happy. People establish TACACS
accounts and get cards by contacting me to get registered.
If you stick to using ARPAnet TACs, you will have no trouble, since
TACACS for the ARPAnet is going to be a little different and has not
been completely figured out yet.
MIT is not sponsoring guest/tourist usage of the MILNET; if you are a
guest, you should just switch to using a TAC on the ARPAnet and avoid
the problem. I can provide you the name of an ARPAnet TAC in your
area, but I cannot authorize you to use it or provide you with
telephone dialup numbers.
I will soon have some "Guest TACACS cards" for authorized MIT people
on our machines who need to use a MILNET TAC but have not yet been
registered for their own personal cards. These cards are confusingly
named: they have nothing to do with guest accounts and are not
available to tourists/guests.
To put it straight: in general, you are up a creek, and there really
isn't very much to be done about it. Feel free to ask me further
questions or whatever though.
Cheers, Chris
Date: Wed, 29 May 85 06:16:01 EST
From: Leigh L. Klotz <KL...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: POU...@MIT-MC.ARPA
cc: USER-A...@MIT-MC.ARPA
You used the word "ARPANET" in your June Byte column three times. You
even said
"I gave Alex the local ARPANET access number to record for the
1200-baud modem and inadvertently transposed two numbers."
I don't care if Alex IS a computer -- you may soon find your accounts
on MC decremented by gov't order.
Date: Thu, 30 May 85 03:57:38 EST
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE at MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: KLOTZ at MIT-MC.ARPA
thank you. if left to you I suppose I cewrtainly will find my
accounts
terminated. Your nice private message appreciated. seppuku follows..
maybe you ought to have me dumped off the net and be done with it? or
must you work through someone else? J. E. Pournelle
Date: Thu, 30 May 85 11:23:26 EST
From: David Vinayak Wallace <GUMBY at MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: KLOTZ at MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Surprise!
Date: Wed, 29 May 85 07:04:16 EST
From: Leigh L. Klotz <KLOTZ at MIT-MC.ARPA>
Do you think I chastised jerry pournelle too much for talking about
his use of the arpanet in byte?
Yes. It's embarrassing to send a message to someone like that when a
message in OFF POURNE would have done as well!
And now you've sent the message out I'll have to go and find out why
he had to mention it in the first place!
Date: Thu, 30 May 85 18:44:42 EST
From: Leigh L. Klotz <KL...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: POU...@MIT-MC.ARPA
cc: GU...@MIT-MC.ARPA
Date: Thu, 30 May 85 03:57:38 EST
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE at MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: KLOTZ at MIT-MC.ARPA
thank you. if left to you I suppose I cewrtainly will find my
accounts terminated. Your nice private message appreciated. seppuku
follows.. maybe you ought to have me dumped off the net and be done
with it? or must you work through someone else?
J. E. Pournelle
USER-A is the mailing list created explicitly for dealing with these
sorts of issues. It is the appropriate forum for discussion. There
are
eight people on user-a. You probably know better than I do, but last
I
heard about 100,000 times as many people read BYTE. Thus, the issue
of
privacy is the last one you should raise.
I don't particularly want to force you into ritual disembowelment;
rather, I'm interested -- and I'm not the only one -- in why you find
it necessary to flaunt your use of the arpanet. The more attention
you
(and other people) draw to non-blow-em-up use of the arpanet the more
likely some Proxmire type is to start inquiring into its operations.
Date: Fri, 31 May 85 01:11:16 EST
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POU...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: KL...@MIT-MC.ARPA
cc: GU...@MIT-MC.ARPA
I find this thoroughly distasteful. If you have some authority to
order me off the net, do so. If not, leave me alone.
Date: 31 MAY 1985 0225 EST
From: GSB at MIT-MC.ARPA (Glenn S. Burke)
To: KLOTZ at MIT-MC.ARPA
i guess i haven't been paying enough attention to realize that he
knew
there was any heckling going on at all.
I'm almost tempted to let him take his marbles and floppy disks and
go
home.
I'm almost tempted to let him take his marbles and floppy disks and
go
home.
Date: Fri, 31 May 85 09:39 EDT
From: Kent M Pitman <KMP at SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>
To: CStacy at MIT-MC.ARPA
cc: Klotz at MIT-MC.ARPA, KMP at SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA,
Gumby at MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Pourne
Date: Fri, 31 May 85 01:11:16 EST
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POU...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: KL...@MIT-MC.ARPA
I find this thoroughly distasteful. If you have some authority to
order me off the net, do so. If not, leave me alone.
Personally, I'd just turn off his account. It's not like it's the
first time, and he not only flaunts his use of our machines but stabs
us in the back with grumblings about why he doesn't like this or that
program of ours when he gets a chance. (Am thinking particularly of
an
article he wrote which condemned Lisp for reasons amounting to little
more than his ignorance, but which cited Teach-Lisp in a not-friendly
light... The man has learned nothing from his presence on MC and sets
a bad example of what people might potentially accomplish there. I'd
rather recycle his account for some bright 12-yr-old...)
Date: Fri, 31 May 85 11:02:27 EST
From: John G. Aspinall <JGA at MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: KLOTZ at MIT-MC.ARPA, GSB at MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: just think of it...
MIT Maximum Confusion PDP-10
MC ITS.1488. PWORD.2632.
TTY 57
16. Lusers, Fair Share = 86%
*:login pourne
That account has been temporarily turned off.
Reason:
Think of it as evolution in action.
Any questions may be directed to USER-ACCOUNTS
*
------------------------------------------------
I don't know whether you guys have read Niven and Pournelle's
_Oath_of_Fealty_, but "Think of it as evolution in action." is their
thinly disguised rallying cry for do-it-yourself social Darwinism. It
would be so, so sweet to shove it back in his face.
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 85 04:37:47 EST
From: David Vinayak Wallace <GUMBY at MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: KLOTZ at MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: POURNE
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 85 00:09:30 EST
From: Glenn S. Burke <GSB at MIT-MC.ARPA>
I.e., little jerry isn't going to get my sympathy if big bad leigh
klotz picks on him.
KLOTZ: 5'8"?
POURNE: >6'4"
Fuck it. Flush him.
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 85 16:01:51 EST
From: David Vinayak Wallace <GUMBY at MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: KLOTZ at MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: pourne
Why hasn't he been flushed yet?
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 85 16:54:04 EST
From: Christopher C. Stacy <CST...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: ACCOUNTS-H...@MIT-MC.ARPA
I set the following account:
Was: POURNE NTURIS [OK] TM Jerry E. Pournelle 06/03/85
Is: POURNE NTURIS [OFF] TM Jerry E. Pournelle 06/03/85
Because: This account has been terminated due to abuse.
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 85 17:04:29 EST
From: Christopher C. Stacy <CST...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: USER-A...@MIT-MC.ARPA
Given POURNE's obnoxious attitiudes towards USER-A and his apparent
belief that he has a god-given right to be on this machine and the
network, we have flushed him.
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 85 17:55:12 EST
From: David Vinayak Wallace <GUMBY at MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: KLOTZ at MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: POURNE
Too late. CSTACY flushed him even from the tac database.
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 85 20:54:44 EDT
From: Glenn S. Burke <GSB at MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: KLOTZ at MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: [Forwarded: topaz!RU-BLUE!LE...@seismo.CSS.GOV, Re: for those
out th
ere who DON'T read SF-LOVERS...]
Received: from MIT-OZ by MIT-MC.ARPA via Chaosnet; 11 JUL 85 05:47:15
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Message-Id: <8507110928.AA07998@topaz.arpa>
Date: 11 Jul 85 05:21 EDT (Thu)
From: Mijjil <topaz!RU-BLUE!LE...@seismo.CSS.GOV>
To: topaz!seismo!band...@seismo.CSS.GOV
Phase-Of-The-Moon: LQ+1D.13H.12M.5S.
Subject: for those out there who DON'T read SF-LOVERS...
---begin forwarded message---
Date: Monday, 8 July 1985 15:45-EDT
From: "Franz Mark" at LLL-MFE.ARPA
Re: WESTERCON 38 and The Pournelle/ARPANET Split
We attended the WESTERCON 38 SF convention held in Sacramento, CA,
over the July 4th weekend. At WESTERCON we talked with Jerry
Pournelle
about why he never contributed to the SF-LOVERS bb since he had an
account at MIT-MC. He said his account at MIT-MC was terminated by
some "graduate student" in charge of accounting, who felt he did not
have a need for an account. He knows who this "graduate student" is,
and he refuses to grovel so that his account is reinstated. However,
he asked us to broadcast this little story - presumably so that
MIT-MC
will come to him.
BTW - if you ever get a chance to meet Jerry Pournelle, you will not
be dissappointed. Sequel to FOOTFALL:-)
HARPANET FOR PRESIDENT,
HUSENET FOR VICE-PRESIDENT.
Also planned is a sequel (and a prequel) to THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE.
WESTERCON 38 was run very well. In addition to Jerry, we spent
several
hours talking with Greg Bear, Norman Spinrad, Robert Adams, James P.
Hogan, Larry Niven, John Brunner, and David Brin.
---end forwarded message---
He might still have an account if he could keep from using words like
ARPANET and DARPA in his column in BYTE magazine!
{Mijjil}
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 85 22:35:03 EDT
From: Christopher C. Stacy <CST...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: [kerch: Jerry Pournelle]
To: USER-A...@MIT-MC.ARPA
I'll take care of this, but I thought you might be amused by it.
Date: Wed Jul 24 13:15:44 1985
From: kerch at lll-tis-b (Berry Kercheval)
To: CSTACY
Re: Jerry Pournelle
Status: N
(Note -- I am a neutral third party)
Mr. Pournelle bids me tell you that if you intended to annoy him,
you have succeeded, and that his next column in BYTE will have a
lot
to say about the ARPANET....
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 85 23:00:04 EDT
From: David Vinayak Wallace <GU...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: [kerch: Jerry Pournelle]
To: CST...@MIT-MC.ARPA
cc: USER-A...@MIT-MC.ARPA
It's funny this should appear in my mail to-day. I had lunch this
afternoon with McCarthy, and in the course of conversation (we were
discussing SF) he mentioned that someone at MC had flushed
Pournelle...
As for pournelle himself: He really thinks that WE are trying to
annoy
HIM??? Of course if he's vitriolic enough and all the obnoxious
turists vanish (leaving the nice ones of course) then he may have
atoned without realising it...
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1985 00:04 EDT
From: PGS%MIT...@MIT-MC.ARPA
To: "Christopher C. Stacy" <CST...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Cc: USER-A...@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: [kerch: Jerry Pournelle]
Date: Wednesday, 24 July 1985 22:35-EDT
From: Christopher C. Stacy <CSTACY at MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: USER-ACCOUNTS at MIT-MC.ARPA
Re: [kerch: Jerry Pournelle]
I'll take care of this, but I thought you might be amused by it.
You might consider contacting Byte about publishing some note from us
to appear simultaneously with this. This is only important if
pournelle is going to say what I think he is going to say (what JMC
told me pournelle was claiming), which is that the reason his account
was flushed was because he favors the Strategic Defense Initiative,
and MC is run by a bunch of communists. This will no doubt please
darpa immensely.
Pournelle claims that he heard at a science fiction convention that
you (chris) had said that the real reason his account was flushed was
that ``he (pournelle) is a fascist.'' Given the current political
climate, this could raise some sort of ruckus, so it would probably
be
good to nip this in the bud.
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 85 14:06:21 EDT
From: Daniel Weise <DAN...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: Pournelle and Byte.
To: P...@MIT-MC.ARPA, USER-A...@MIT-MC.ARPA,
CST...@MIT-MC.ARPA
All we have to to is warn Byte that MIT will sue the magazine if any
incorrect defamatory comments are made by Pournelle. I am sure the
editors there have the same opinion of him that we do and will make
sure that Pournelle doesn't end them up in court.
As it stands Pournelle really doesn't understand the state of the
world. If he insists on printing his delusions then MIT's case would
be trivial to win.
Daniel
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 85 23:55:48 EDT
From: Leigh L. Klotz <KL...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: user-a@MIT-OZ
The following is offered without comment. It was forwarded to me by
someone who reads the Byte Magazine bulletin board.
= = B Y T E C O S Y 3.1+ = =
===========================
###### ####### ### ##
### # ### ### ##
###### ### #### (TM)
### # ### ## ###
###### ####### ## ###
===========================
BYTE Information Exchange
McGraw-Hill Information Systems Co.
COSY Conferencing System, Copyright (c) 1984 University of Guelph
Written by: Alastair JW Mayer
:j networks/arpanet
Joining conference 'networks', topic 'arpanet'. 0 new message(s).
Read:3
==========================
networks/arpanet #3, from jerryp, 377 chars, Tue Jul 9 18:22:01
1985
This is a comment to message 2.
There is/are comment(s) on this message.
--------------------------
One thing that is known about ARPA: you can be heaved off it
for supporting the policies of the Department of Defense.
Of course that was intended to anger me. If you have an
ARPA account, please tell CSTACY that he was successful;
now let us see if my Pentagon friends can upset him. Or
perhaps some reporter friends. Or both., Or even
the House Armed Services Committee.
No more unread messages in this topic
Hit <RETURN> for next active conf/topic.
Read:bye
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 85 16:45:09 EDT
From: "Christopher C. Stacy" <CST...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: vax135!petsd!pedsgd!bobh at UCB-VAX.Berkeley.EDU
To: USER-A...@MIT-MC.ARPA
It would be a good idea if people did NOT respond to the message
about
Jerry Pournelle; nothing useful can come from stirring this around
further.
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1985 23:10 EST
From: PGS%MIT...@MIT-MC.ARPA
To: use...@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Pournelle
Leigh read me some of Mr. Pournelle's expose' of the ARPAnet. He
pretty much said that, due to increased demands on computational
resources, guest accounts are no longer generally available on MC,
thereby saving Chris some typing.
min...@media.mit.edu
ab...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) wrote:
>
> Eric Smith (eric-no-s...@brouhaha.com) writes:
seen
> > Marvin Minsky write a Turing Machine simulator as a one-liner in
APL.
> >
No, but it shouldn't be hard. I did write this Turing Machine simulator
as a macro in the TECO language when we got our first PDP-1.
hki1Aul qq+^^0:iqm^[29iiq****
^[j<sR^[;-d-2ciql-^^^[ci"ed^^^[cii^[ciuq'^[>
j<sL^[;-d-2ciql-^^^[ci"ed^^^[cii-2c^[ciuq'^[>
jxblx1lx2lx3lx4lx5lx6lx7hk
iyyAyyAyy^[32<i0^[>ji110101110000010011011^[ 1uq <htmbqq=>!
The symbol-state table for the Turing machine is inserted where I put
****. For example,
y0L1 00L1 11L2 A1L1
y0L1 0yR2 1AR2 AyR6
yyL3 00L0 1AL3 A1L4
yyL4 0yR5 11L7 A1L4
yyR5 0yL3 1AR5 A1R5
yyR6 0AL3 1AR6 A1R6
y0R7 0yR6 11R7 A0R2
is the code for a Universal Turing Machine based on Emil Post's Tag
Systems. The coding for this machine is unspeakably complicated, and is
in my old book "Computation" which is out of print, but I plan to put in
on the Web one of these
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Arthur T. Murray
> In article <7os6n7$p...@freenet-news.carleton.ca>,
> ab...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) wrote:
>
>> Eric Smith (eric-no-s...@brouhaha.com) writes:
>>> Back in December 1983, Jerry Pournelle mentioned in Byte
>>> that he had seen Marvin Minsky write a Turing Machine simulator
>>> as a one-liner in APL.
When APL came out for the (all bow down) Amiga in circa 1989,
a fellow Amiga user named Michael Crick (whom I later found as
the author of a chapter on APL in a used book store) told me
that APL means, "A Programming Language." Was Crick right, or
does APL mean "Array Programming Language"?
(I enjoyed introducing to each other as sons-of-Nobelists,
Crick and Bardeen, at one of our Amiga user soirees.)
>>>
>>> Does anyone have a copy?
Or a Web link, for me to put in my recently updated, PD-AI-pushing
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/7256/apl.html APL home page?
> No, but it shouldn't be hard. I did write this Turing Machine
> simulator as a macro in the TECO language when we got our
> first PDP-1.
> hki1Aul qq+^^0:iqm^[29iiq****
> ^[j<sR^[;-d-2ciql-^^^[ci"ed^^^[cii^[ciuq'^[>
> j<sL^[;-d-2ciql-^^^[ci"ed^^^[cii-2c^[ciuq'^[>
> jxblx1lx2lx3lx4lx5lx6lx7hk
> iyyAyyAyy^[32<i0^[>ji110101110000010011011^[ 1uq <htmbqq=>!
> The symbol-state table for the Turing machine is inserted where
> I put ****. For example,
> y0L1 00L1 11L2 A1L1
> y0L1 0yR2 1AR2 AyR6
> yyL3 00L0 1AL3 A1L4
> yyL4 0yR5 11L7 A1L4
> yyR5 0yL3 1AR5 A1R5
> yyR6 0AL3 1AR6 A1R6
> y0R7 0yR6 11R7 A0R2
> is the code for a Universal Turing Machine based on Emil Post's
> Tag Systems. The coding for this machine is unspeakably
> complicated, and is in my old book "Computation" which is out
> of print, but I plan to put in on the Web one of these [...]
---
[ comp.ai is moderated. To submit, just give up your rights, or if ]
[ that fails mail your article to <com...@moderators.isc.org>, and ]
[ ask your news administrator to fix the problem with your freedom. ]
David Ness
>
> When APL came out for the (all bow down) Amiga in circa 1989,
> a fellow Amiga user named Michael Crick (whom I later found as
> the author of a chapter on APL in a used book store) told me
> that APL means, "A Programming Language." Was Crick right, or
> does APL mean "Array Programming Language"?
>
KEI's original book was: `A Programming Language'. Since he invented
it, I suppose his name counts...
Derek Peschel
Arthur T. Murray <uj...@victoria.tc.ca> wrote:
>When APL came out for the (all bow down) Amiga in circa 1989,
>a fellow Amiga user named Michael Crick (whom I later found as
>the author of a chapter on APL in a used book store) told me
>that APL means, "A Programming Language." Was Crick right, or
>does APL mean "Array Programming Language"?
It really does mean A Programming Language. That's the title of the book,
written by Ken Iverson (who created APL), which introduced APL to the world.
-- Derek
Bob Hoekstra
Agree completely. But there seems to be a growing trend to refer to it
as "Array Programming Language" (which does make sense, sort of) and
(perhaps more reasonably) referring to "APLs" and meaning "Array
Programming Languages", i.e. including APL, J, K, Q'Nial, and perhaps
even Matlab and some others...
The contents of this message express only the sender's opinion.
This message does not necessarily reflect the policy or views of
my employer, Merck & Co., Inc. All responsibility for the statements
made in this Usenet posting resides solely and completely with the
sender.
Brian Inglis
>In article <7os6n7$p...@freenet-news.carleton.ca>,
> ab...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) wrote:
>> Eric Smith (eric-no-s...@brouhaha.com) writes:
>>> Back in December 1983, Jerry Pournelle mentioned in Byte that he had seen
>>> Marvin Minsky write a Turing Machine simulator as a one-liner in APL.
>as a macro in the TECO language when we got our first PDP-1.
> hki1Aul qq+^^0:iqm^[29iiq****
> ^[j<sR^[;-d-2ciql-^^^[ci"ed^^^[cii^[ciuq'^[>
> j<sL^[;-d-2ciql-^^^[ci"ed^^^[cii-2c^[ciuq'^[>
>jxblx1lx2lx3lx4lx5lx6lx7hk
> iyyAyyAyy^[32<i0^[>ji110101110000010011011^[ 1uq <htmbqq=>!
>The symbol-state table for the Turing machine is inserted where I put
>****. For example,
> y0L1 00L1 11L2 A1L1
> y0L1 0yR2 1AR2 AyR6
> yyL3 00L0 1AL3 A1L4
> yyL4 0yR5 11L7 A1L4
> yyR5 0yL3 1AR5 A1R5
> yyR6 0AL3 1AR6 A1R6
> y0R7 0yR6 11R7 A0R2
>is the code for a Universal Turing Machine based on Emil Post's Tag
>Systems. The coding for this machine is unspeakably complicated, and is
>in my old book "Computation" which is out of print, but I plan to put in
>on the Web one of these
remembered it as APL.
Marvin should have showed him the unsquished version.
[From TECO Documentation Standards: one line of comment per
character of code is considered minimal ;^> ]
Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
--
Brian_...@CSi.com (Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca)
use address above to reply
Jim Lucas
>Derek Peschel wrote:
>>
>> It really does mean A Programming Language. That's the title of the
book,
>> written by Ken Iverson (who created APL), which introduced APL to the
world.
>
>Agree completely. But there seems to be a growing trend to refer to it
>as "Array Programming Language" (which does make sense, sort of) and
>(perhaps more reasonably) referring to "APLs" and meaning "Array
>Programming Languages", i.e. including APL, J, K, Q'Nial, and perhaps
>even Matlab and some others...
Have I missed something? I have noticed discussion of "array programming
languages". I have noticed the attempted expansion of the APL Conference to
include other languages which might be classed as array programming
languages. And so I've seen APL referred to as *an* array programming
language. But I haven't seen "array programming languages" referred to as
"APLs". It's still written out in full everywhere I've seen it.
Nor am I aware that anyone outside the APL community (I include J as
"inside") is particularly interested in joining APL in such a common
classification. It seems to me an attempt by some APLers to artificially
(my opinion) expand what they see as an otherwise shrinking community.
Including K as an "array" programming language seems particularly silly. It
does share some of APL's features, but arrays aren't among them; its basic
data structure is not arrays, but lists.
stevan apter
in the habit of referring collectively to APLs as "APLs". (see?)
i disagree with your etiology for the term, and also with your opinion
that k not be classified as an APL. when circumstances make it useful
to group k with other languages, its resemblances to APL and j surely
outweigh the differences. to put it another way, k has more in common
with APL and j than it does with any other programming language.
but now you may think that i am some benighted nominalist, for whom
classification is merely notional, which serves only the conveniences of
the moment. not so. we all know, at least in rough outline, the causal
history of the ideas of array programming. j, k, and APL are forks off
a single research program and a single intellectual tradition.
Jim Lucas <ji...@novo.dk> wrote in message
news:Akww3.174$cB5...@news.get2net.dk...
Arthur T. Murray
> well jim, i guess you just sail right past what i write,
> since i am in the habit of referring collectively to
> APLs as "APLs". (see?) [...]
Snipping Stevan Apter's "benighted" self-reference (nominally
reminiscent of F. Nietzsche's "allubliche geistige Umnachtung"),
we interrupt this Minskyan thread based on the attribution
Back in December 1983, Jerry Pournelle
mentioned in Byte that he had seen Marvin
Minsky write a Turing Machine simulator
as a one-liner in APL.
to exhort any array programmer to work on porting the arrays in
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/7256/mind-fpc.html Mind.Forth
into APL qua APL or any other APL that can aplement neuronal fibers
as elements of arrays, with software flags standing in for synapses.
> [...] we all know, at least in rough outline,
> the causal history of the ideas of array programming.
> j, k, and APL are forks off a single research program
> and a single intellectual tradition. [...]
> Jim Lucas <ji...@novo.dk> wrote in message
> news:Akww3.174$cB5...@news.get2net.dk...
>> Bob Hoekstra wrote in message <37B426E4...@merck.com>...
>>> Derek Peschel wrote: [...]
>> Including K as an "array" programming language seems particularly
>> silly. It does share some of APL's features, but arrays aren't
>> among them; its basic data structure is not arrays, but lists.
The LISt Processing language LISP is also a candidate for PD AI:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/7256/lisp.html LISP PD AI.
Bjorn Helgason
stevan apter wrote:
> well jim, i guess you just sail right past what i write, since i am
> in the habit of referring collectively to APLs as "APLs". (see?)
I can not recall seing anything from the recent APL conference APL99.
That was supposed to be about Array Processing Languages and included
a number of languages.
Does anyone know if there is going to be APL conference next year in Europe
and where and when it is supposed to be held?
/Gosi
Jim Lucas
>well jim, i guess you just sail right past what i write...
Or parts of what you write. Possible. Also possible that I've missed some,
as my server clearly doesn't pass everything through. (I "love" seeing lots
of answers to a post which doesn't show up until weeks later, if at all.)
>i am in the habit of referring collectively to APLs as "APLs".
I hereby eat my words... well, the part referring to the use of that term.
>i disagree with your etiology for the term, and also with your opinion
>that k not be classified as an APL. when circumstances make it useful
>to group k with other languages, its resemblances to APL and j surely
>outweigh the differences. to put it another way, k has more in common
>with APL and j than it does with any other programming language.
>
>but now you may think that i am some benighted nominalist, for whom
>classification is merely notional, which serves only the conveniences of
>the moment. not so. we all know, at least in rough outline, the causal
>history of the ideas of array programming. j, k, and APL are forks off
>a single research program and a single intellectual tradition.
I agree completely with you about the relationship among APL, J, and K. But
close relationship to APL (A Programming Language) does not warrant
describing K as an "array" language, no matter how convenient the similarity
of the acronyms. That was my point. K quite explicitly does not support
arrays as a basic data structure, though array-like operations are
frequently -- and often easily -- simulated.
So Steve, when *you* speak of "APLs", which is it you mean? Members of a
closely related family including and descended from Iverson notation, or
languages for which "arrays" are significantly central that that should be
the term used to classify them? I believe the post I was responding to was
claiming the latter.
Edward Rice
ab...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) wrote:
> Eric Smith (eric-no-s...@brouhaha.com) writes:
> > Back in December 1983, Jerry Pournelle mentioned in Byte that he had
seen
> > Marvin Minsky write a Turing Machine simulator as a one-liner in APL.
> >
> > Does anyone have a copy?
>
> Not at hand, BUT, in A Programming Language by Kenneth E. Iverson,
> John Wiley and Sons Inc. c/r 1962 Lib. of Congress 62-15180,
> Chapter 2 Microprogramming
> (whew) there are many lines of pre-APL describing the IBM 7090
> instructions simulation.
It ought to be noted, at least for the youngsters, that APL was not
originally defined in order to write programs. Ken Iverson defined APL in
order to have a language with which he could define other things, like
computer processors, and how they worked. Thus, the pre-APL for the 7090
and the APL /definition/ for the 360 are two originally intended uses for
what was first called "Iverson's Language." It wasn't until people started
thinking of it as a coding model and wanted to see things executed that it
acquired the later name and the necessary software to run it.
Mike Haertel
>Ken Iverson defined APL in
>order to have a language with which he could define other things, like
>computer processors, and how they worked. Thus, the pre-APL for the 7090
>and the APL /definition/ for the 360 are two originally intended uses for
>what was first called "Iverson's Language."
I am very interested in formal definitions of instruction sets.
Was the APL definition of the 360 ever published?
Did they ever upgrade it for the 370 or later processors?
Morris Dovey
> I am very interested in formal definitions of instruction sets.
>
> Was the APL definition of the 360 ever published?
I think so -- but that was "long ago and far, far away". I'm not sure but I
think it may have been published in the "IBM Systems Journal".
Morris Dovey
West Des Moines, Iowa USA
mrd...@iedu.org
Dennis Ritchie
...
> I am very interested in formal definitions of instruction sets.
>
> Was the APL definition of the 360 ever published?
Falkoff, Iverson, Sussenguth,
"A Formal Description of System/360",
IBM Systems Journal v3 n3, 1964
>
> Did they ever upgrade it for the 370 or later processors?
Dunno about that.
Blaauw and Brooks's Computer Architechture
book, incidentally, uses an APL-based notation to
describe machines and also has large bibliography.
Dennis
Tom Van Vleck
in FAP macros in the late 60s at Project MAC. You assembled
a single macro TURING with arguments initial tape, initial state,
and transition rules, and it ground away finally assembling
to PZE 1 or PZE 0 depending on where the machine stopped.
If the compuatation didn't terminate, the assembly never finished.
The program was a great hack, but only a system programmer with
unlimited machine time could run it more than once or twice.
The brilliancy was in using FAP's macro facility rather than
writing an application. FAP macros could define other macros,
meaning that the FAP macro world could simulate a general tag
system, and compute any number.
We used to speculate that there were two kinds of programs:
those that could compute pi and those that couldn't. FAP could.
So could TECO -- Gosper did this -- and late versions of RUNOFF.
QED could, presumably, since it had recursion and branching,
though I don't know of any demonstration. (I think Joe Ossanna
programmed tic-tac-toe in QED though.) Multics shell macros can
compute anything, using string replacement and arithmetic active
functions. It's always fun to look for what piece is
needed to push a programming environment over the edge into
Turing-equivalence.
Dennis Ritchie
>
> I remember that Bob Fenichel wrote a Turing machine simulator
> in FAP macros in the late 60s at Project MAC.
I thought it was cool that Bob Fenichel wrote a Harvard Tech Report
entitled "On the Nonexistence of a Type 1 Grammar for FAP."
That's what grad students did then (aside from Sgt Pepper).
...
> QED could, presumably, since it had recursion and branching,
> though I don't know of any demonstration.
in vi macros. The comment is
map C : Written 1987 by Dave Hitz.
map C : Leave this notice to satisfy my ego.
map C :
map C : UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!hitz
...
> It's always fun to look for what piece is
> needed to push a programming environment over the edge into
> Turing-equivalence.
It's astonishly small. My favorites are the Minsky 2-counter
machine, and the Hao Wang Turing machine that runs using
1-channel paper tape that can't be unpunched.
Dennis
jmfb...@aol.com
th...@multicians.org (Tom Van Vleck) wrote:
>I remember that Bob Fenichel wrote a Turing machine simulator
>a single macro TURING with arguments initial tape, initial state,
>and transition rules, and it ground away finally assembling
>to PZE 1 or PZE 0 depending on where the machine stopped.
>If the compuatation didn't terminate, the assembly never finished.
>
>The program was a great hack, but only a system programmer with
>unlimited machine time could run it more than once or twice.
>The brilliancy was in using FAP's macro facility rather than
>writing an application. FAP macros could define other macros,
>meaning that the FAP macro world could simulate a general tag
>system, and compute any number.
>
>We used to speculate that there were two kinds of programs:
>those that could compute pi and those that couldn't. FAP could.
>So could TECO -- Gosper did this -- and late versions of RUNOFF.
Part of our folklore is that TECO could do anything :-). But,
RUNOFF?
<SNIP>
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
Peter Stephenson
wrote:
> I don't either, but I have packed away a TM simulator
>in vi macros. The comment is
>
Could you post or email that, please? Maybe it's time to re-map 'g'
from 'comment out'.
David Warman
rather neat graphical Windoze-based one:
--
Dave Warman
====================================================
Warman's First Law:
Everything that can be configured, must be
Corollary:
Defaults aren't
Kragen Sitaker
Tom Van Vleck <th...@multicians.org> wrote:
>QED could, presumably, [compute pi] since it had recursion and branching,
>though I don't know of any demonstration. (I think Joe Ossanna
>programmed tic-tac-toe in QED though.)
I seem to remember that Plauger claimed, in one of his books, to have
written a relocating linker in QED. I think he claimed it was one of
the more reprehensible things he'd done.
I'm sure I haven't read the book since 1995, though, so my memory could
be incorrect.
Kragen
--
<kra...@pobox.com> Kragen Sitaker <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
Tue Sep 14 1999
55 days until the Internet stock bubble bursts on Monday, 1999-11-08.
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
Victor Eijkhout
--
Victor Eijkhout
Eric Smith
> Pshah. Turing machine. How about a MIX interpreter?
If you have a Turing machine, you can run a MIX interpreter on it. :-)