Old APL Floppies Worth Transfering?

[Doug White]

I've been cleaning out some old bins of software, and ran across two
items on 5 1/4" floppies:

"Introduction to APL" by Kenneth Iverson, APL Press, Rockville, MD

and

STSC Pocket APL System - Disk 1
Release Number: 2.1
S/N 556897

I no longer have a 5 1/4" drive, and no one apparently makes a USB
version of such a drive. If I want to read them (or a few others I
have), I will probably send them off to a commercial transfer company
that will dump them to a CD. Depending on who you go to, it's anywhere
from $5 to $15 a floppy.

The question is: Is it worth it?

I don't know if either disk has anything that can be run on a modern
system, even with a DOS emulator. I do have the books for both.

The Iverson floppy apparently includes tutorial workspaces that will run
under STSC's APL*PLUS PC, which I have running on several PC's.

The Pocket APL manual doesn't seem to have any installation instructions.
I assume it is a version of APL*PLUS PC. I don't even know if there is
supposed to be a "Disk 2" someplace. I already have the lesson files for
"APL is Easy", which I suspect covers the same material. The manuals for
"APL is Easy" and "Pocket APL" were both written by Jerry Turner, and
they were published about the same time, so I don't know what the
differences might be.

Given that I have some other floppies that have data I'd like to hang
onto, I will probably send them along as well. The other possibility is
that someone has already rescued one or both and has them archived
someplace & accessible on-line.

If I do rescue them, I seem to recall someone was collecting old APL
software for historical purposes. Can anyone point me to the right
person or web site? The copyrights are still in effect, but I would hope
that historical archiving counts as "fair use".

Comments & suggestions welcome.

Thanks!

Doug White

[Curtis A. Jones]

On Aug 21, 7:57 am, Doug White <gwh...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> I've been cleaning out some old bins of software, and ran across two
> items on 5 1/4" floppies:
>
> "Introduction to APL" by Kenneth Iverson, APL Press, Rockville, MD
>
> and
>
> STSC Pocket APL System - Disk 1
> Release Number: 2.1
> S/N 556897

...
> Doug White

Doug,
The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California is collecting
APL interpreters. I don't know if it already has Pocket APL and I
don't remember anything of Iverson's "Introduction to APL" on a
diskette.

If you're willing to donate the material, see
http://www.computerhistory.org/artifactdonation/

I bought Pocket APL at, I think, the West Coast Computer Faire in July
1987. I may be mixing memories, but I think Ray Polivka was
demonstrating it on a PC Jr. The PC Jr. was key: here was an APL that
would run on any old PC. It did not need a math coprocessor. I
thought this APL would spread through the world because it didn't
require unusual hardware or cost a lot.

"APL is Easy" certainly looked directed at the world at large!

Pocket APL worked fine, but I never really used it much since I was
far more familiar with APL/PC which I used both at work and at home.

I think it's an important point in the history of APL - if only as a
forewarning that I-APL's spread might be limited. Curtis