Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
APL workspaces from the past
138 views
Skip to first unread message
apl.explorer
Feb 17, 2013, 2:08:37 PM2/17/13
to
Do we know if all of those old APL\360, APLSV, etc... public workspaces from late 60's, 70's, 80's are stored in archives somewhere? I remember when i was 15-18 years old and was learning APL at IBM Essex Junction, Vermont, they allowed me to print all of their public AND scientific workspaces on their high-speed printers once we switched to APLSV in 1974. Sad news is - dear old mom disposed of all my stuff before i could pick them up after i moved out of the house. I had a very, very large stack of APL workspace printouts. One of them was APLGOL from IBM Endicott, New York acquired through an IBM APL phone link. Seems to me IBM must have saved all of these treasures in an archive somewhere. The APL\360 project on the Hercules emulator would love to have the old APL\360 workspaces. I'm sure there were many of them. Anyone know of any contact person(s) at IBM?
guy.lar...@gmail.com
Mar 10, 2013, 3:33:51 PM3/10/13
to
On Sunday, February 17, 2013 2:08:37 PM UTC-5, apl.explorer wrote:
> Do we know if all of those old APL\360, APLSV, etc... public workspaces from late 60's, 70's, 80's are stored in archives somewhere? I remember when i was 15-18 years old and was learning APL at IBM Essex Junction, Vermont, they allowed me to print all of their public AND scientific workspaces on their high-speed printers once we switched to APLSV in 1974. Sad news is - dear old mom disposed of all my stuff before i could pick them up after i moved out of the house. I had a very, very large stack of APL workspace printouts. One of them was APLGOL from IBM Endicott, New York acquired through an IBM APL phone link. Seems to me IBM must have saved all of these treasures in an archive somewhere. The APL\360 project on the Hercules emulator would love to have the old APL\360 workspaces. I'm sure there were many of them. Anyone know of any contact person(s) at IBM?
It would be a great initiative if it is possible to retrieve these workspaces, not only for the APL\360 project, but also for general use. It is likely that the programs might be very useful for many users.
> Do we know if all of those old APL\360, APLSV, etc... public workspaces from late 60's, 70's, 80's are stored in archives somewhere? I remember when i was 15-18 years old and was learning APL at IBM Essex Junction, Vermont, they allowed me to print all of their public AND scientific workspaces on their high-speed printers once we switched to APLSV in 1974. Sad news is - dear old mom disposed of all my stuff before i could pick them up after i moved out of the house. I had a very, very large stack of APL workspace printouts. One of them was APLGOL from IBM Endicott, New York acquired through an IBM APL phone link. Seems to me IBM must have saved all of these treasures in an archive somewhere. The APL\360 project on the Hercules emulator would love to have the old APL\360 workspaces. I'm sure there were many of them. Anyone know of any contact person(s) at IBM?
Guy Larocque
k...@aplteam.com
Mar 11, 2013, 4:01:56 AM3/11/13
to
> It would be a great initiative if it is possible to retrieve these workspaces, not only for the APL\360 project, but also for general use. It is likely that the programs might be very useful for many users.
Really?! I have some doubts. When I look at old code more often then not I keep thinking: "That is absolutely horrible!". That includes but is not restricted to my own code. This is particularly true for mainframe code.
Not only did APLer suffer in those days from technical restrictions (shortage of memory, no control structures, no OO, no namespaces, you name it) but the general level of programming was, well, no exactly impressive. I remember being frightened after having looked into Graphpak, IC/1 and several utility namespaces. And then there was the APL2 editor, itself written in APL2. Oh dear.
Documentation? Another problem area.
Let it rest in peace and focus on new stuff would be my advice.
Kai
ap...@videotron.ca
Mar 11, 2013, 1:04:29 PM3/11/13
to
I have the STAT5 to STAT12 statistical WS of IBM saved with APL+Win 5.0. If this is what you are looking for send me an email (apgil at videotron dot ca) and I will send them to you as is.
0 new messages