APL for PiDP11 ??

[Jack Wilkinson]

I've been reading a recent thread about APL running on the PiDP11.  Can someone tell me which OS and what I would need to do to get it up and running?

Thanks!

jack

[Johnny Billquist]

Install my PiDP RSX image:

http://mim.stupi.net/pidp.htm

Then do:

@[RPM]RPM ALL

followed by

@[RPM]RPM INSTALL APL

and you are done. Run APL by giving the command "APL".

Johnny

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--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

[Jack Wilkinson]

Hi there,

APL runs in "TT" mode with no problems, except for the obvious part, no
character set.

From my Mac, if I run:

jackw@traviata:~$ tek4010 -APL -autoClear telnet pidp11 10001
tek4010 version 1.9
Screen dimensions: 1920 x 2197
Window dimensions: 1024 x 780

and there it hangs.

If I run just the "telnet pidp11 10001" part of the command, I can
connect to the running instance of rsx with no problem.

Any idea what I'm missing??  I seem to remember that this used to work.

Thanks a lot!
jack

On 4/6/24 7:08 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> Install my PiDP RSX image:
>
> http://mim.stupi.net/pidp.htm
>
> Then do:
>
> @[RPM]RPM ALL
>
> followed by
>
> @[RPM]RPM INSTALL APL
>
> and you are done. Run APL by giving the command "APL".
>
>   Johnny
>

--
function in disaster, finish in style.

[Johnny Billquist]

Don't really know the tek4010 application that well, except that I know
it's pretty badly designed from the view of how it interacts with
whatever subprocess it runs. The design is completely wrong and looks
like it was written by someone who don't know how to do that under Unix.

Johnny

[John H. Reinhardt]

I haven't seen the thread you're noting, but I do recall that back in the summer of 1977 when I was at Rose-Hulman at their Camp Retumpoc, using APL on their PDP-11/70 running RSTS/E V60B.  Hopefully there is a copy out there somewhere still.  I do not recall seeing one though.

John H. Reinhardt

[Johnny Billquist]

Haven't seen that thread either, but I fixed APL for RSX a year or three
ago. If you grab the RSX image I created for the PiDP-11, and then use
RPM to install APL, you're all done.

Johnny

On 08/04/2026 13.27, John H. Reinhardt wrote:
> I haven't seen the thread you're noting, but I do recall that back in
> the summer of 1977 when I was at Rose-Hulman at their Camp Retumpoc,

> using APL on their PDP-11/70 running RSTS/E V60B.  Hopefully thereis a

[Mark Matlock]

John, Jack,

   A bit of background on APL-11. DEC developed it for RSX but decided to donate it to DECUS, so it was one of the separate DECUS items (11-SP-25) that was lost. I had bought a copy of it back in the day and used it with a HDS APL terminal that emulated a Tek 4010. I hung on to the nine-track tape and recovered it. The task images I had ran ok on newer RSX version but the tape also had the Macro-11 source code. On one of the RSX85A Sig tape, Bob Awde of General Mills distributed patches he made for APL-11 that used I/D space and Supervisor mode libraries. You can read about this on the DECUS DU1 disk that is mentioned in the PiDP-11/70 manual in UIC [370,360]APLID.DOC. Also, the APL-11 macro source files are in [201,50] on that disk as well.

   This I/D enhancement increases the work space size for APL from just under 30K to >52K bytes. Unfortunately, I could not get APL-11 to link under the current versions of RSX11M+. I couldn’t even get the non-I/D APL-11 to build with TKB. In 2021, I got my friend, Lee Gleason interested in this problem and he figured out what was going wrong and managed to create a version of APL-11 that used I/D space. He writes about that in his RSX blog (see https://rsx11.blogspot.com/2021/02/decus-apl-11-fixes-for-id-space-and.html ). The problem had to do with how RSX autoloads overlay segments and how TKB has changed some things over time. His fix involved some steps beyond a simple TKB command file, but it caught the attention of Johnny Billquist.

   Johnny started working on the problem and made changes to the APL-11 source code and overlay descriptor files so that APL-11 would build with I/D space, FSL, and updated post Y2K date patches. He also found a number of errors in the source code and made fixes for them as well. The latest version of APL-11 V2.2-2 is available via his RPM software distribution system.

   I’d like to publicly thank Johnny and Lee for their work in recovering this piece of PDP-11 software! Also, I’d like to thank Rene Richarz who back in 2019 developed a Tektronix 4010 for the Raspberry Pi that displayed the APL character set properly on the PiDP-11/70.

   As far as using APL-11 with non-APL terminals, DEC came up with a pretty workable system with two letter codes for the APL character set and its odd overstrike combinations that worked well on IBM selectric type writer terminals but not so much on normal CRTs (although the VT340 works great with VAX APL). Printing APL programs is still difficult and if anyone has a LA36 with the APL character set ROM it would be great to recover an image of the ROM.

   We do have the programmer’s reference manual for APL-11 

https://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/lang/apl/AA-5076B-TC_APL-11_Programmers_Reference_Manual_Jan80.pdf

And the Installation manual which indicates it did run on RSTS/E V7 (for John Reinhardt).

http://mim.softjar.se/manuals/LAYERED/apl11ins.pdf

    Lastly and perhaps the most important piece of APL documentation is DEC’s APL quick reference card for not only APL-11 on RT-11, RSTS and RSX11M but also APL-SF for TOPS-10 and TOPS -20. It is a scan of my stained, dog ear-ed, much used APL quick reference card. It has all the two letter codes for the TT (non-APL character terminals) terminals in a handy pocket reference guide.

http://www.rsx11m.com/APL_Reference_Card.pdf

Best,

Mark

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[Chris Jordan]

I haven't tried it yet, but Unicomp will sell you a set of keycaps with the APL symbols on them, which seems like it ought to be useful.

Chris

[Mark Matlock]

Chris,

    Thanks for your email. I did buy a set of Unicomp APL key caps sometime back. 

   A VT340 or a VT LAN 40 that emulates a VT340 does a good job with APL characters including overstrikes (first symbol, ^D, second symbol) displays overstruck symbols nicely. The problem comes in trying to get a print out of a function you defined with APL characters. That was what the LA37 (LA36 with APL) did quite well, but they are scarce.

Best,

Mark

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-11/d3073602-7719-4c93-bcd7-bc80f92c842dn%40googlegroups.com.

[Johnny Billquist]

Thank for reminding me, as well as filling in a bit more detail on the
story. I only remember that I fixed some bits of the overlay issues that
you guys hadn't figured out, and then I got a bit carried away and
started fixing some other things I noticed in APL just because I was
fooling around. :-)

An extra thanks for actually preserving, and providing the sources to
start with.

Also thanks to Lee who did some additional work as well.

Johnny

On 2026-04-08 19:14, Mark Matlock wrote:
> John, Jack,
>    A bit of background on APL-11. DEC developed it for RSX but decided
> to donate it to DECUS, so it was one of the separate DECUS items (11-
> SP-25) that was lost. I had bought a copy of it back in the day and used
> it with a HDS APL terminal that emulated a Tek 4010. I hung on to the
> nine-track tape and recovered it. The task images I had ran ok on newer
> RSX version but the tape also had the Macro-11 source code. On one of
> the RSX85A Sig tape, Bob Awde of General Mills distributed patches he
> made for APL-11 that used I/D space and Supervisor mode libraries. You
> can read about this on the DECUS DU1 disk that is mentioned in the
> PiDP-11/70 manual in UIC [370,360]APLID.DOC. Also, the APL-11 macro
> source files are in [201,50] on that disk as well.
>
>    This I/D enhancement increases the work space size for APL from just
> under 30K to >52K bytes. Unfortunately, I could not get APL-11 to link
> under the current versions of RSX11M+. I couldn’t even get the non-I/D
> APL-11 to build with TKB. In 2021, I got my friend, Lee Gleason
> interested in this problem and he figured out what was going wrong and
> managed to create a version of APL-11 that used I/D space. He writes
> about that in his RSX blog (see https://rsx11.blogspot.com/2021/02/

> decus-apl-11-fixes-for-id-space-and.html <https://
> rsx11.blogspot.com/2021/02/decus-apl-11-fixes-for-id-space-and.html> ).

> The problem had to do with how RSX autoloads overlay segments and how
> TKB has changed some things over time. His fix involved some steps
> beyond a simple TKB command file, but it caught the attention of Johnny
> Billquist.
>

>    Johnny started working on the problem and made changes tothe APL-11

> source code and overlay descriptor files so that APL-11 would build with
> I/D space, FSL, and updated post Y2K date patches. He also found a
> number of errors in the source code and made fixes for them as well. The
> latest version of APL-11 V2.2-2 is available via his RPM software
> distribution system.
>
>    I’d like to publicly thank Johnny and Lee for their work in
> recovering this piece of PDP-11 software! Also, I’d like to thank Rene
> Richarz who back in 2019 developed a Tektronix 4010 for the Raspberry Pi
> that displayed the APL character set properly on the PiDP-11/70.
>
>    As far as using APL-11 with non-APL terminals, DEC came up with a
> pretty workable system with two letter codes for the APL character set
> and its odd overstrike combinations that worked well on IBM selectric
> type writer terminals but not so much on normal CRTs (although the VT340
> works great with VAX APL). Printing APL programs is still difficult and
> if anyone has a LA36 with the APL character set ROM it would be great to
> recover an image of the ROM.
>
>    We do have the programmer’s reference manual for APL-11
>
> https://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/lang/apl/AA-5076B-

> TC_APL-11_Programmers_Reference_Manual_Jan80.pdf <https://
> www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/lang/apl/AA-5076B-
> TC_APL-11_Programmers_Reference_Manual_Jan80.pdf>

>
> And the Installation manual which indicates it did run on RSTS/E V7 (for
> John Reinhardt).
>

> http://mim.softjar.se/manuals/LAYERED/apl11ins.pdf <http://
> mim.softjar.se/manuals/LAYERED/apl11ins.pdf>

>
>     Lastly and perhaps the most important piece of APL documentation is
> DEC’s APL quick reference card for not only APL-11 on RT-11, RSTS and
> RSX11M but also APL-SF for TOPS-10 and TOPS -20. It is a scan of my
> stained, dog ear-ed, much used APL quick reference card. It has all the
> two letter codes for the TT (non-APL character terminals) terminals in a
> handy pocket reference guide.
>

> http://www.rsx11m.com/APL_Reference_Card.pdf <http://www.rsx11m.com/
> APL_Reference_Card.pdf>

>
> Best,
> Mark
>
>
>> On Apr 8, 2026, at 6:27 AM, John H. Reinhardt
>> <johnhre...@thereinhardts.org> wrote:
>>
>> I haven't seen the thread you're noting, but I do recall that back in
>> the summer of 1977 when I was at Rose-Hulman at their Camp Retumpoc,
>> using APL on their PDP-11/70 running RSTS/E V60B.  Hopefully there is
>> a copy out there somewhere still.  I do not recall seeing one though.
>>
>> John H. Reinhardt
>>
>> On 4/6/2024 3:53 PM, Jack Wilkinson wrote:
>>> I've been reading a recent thread about APL running on the PiDP11.
>>>  Can someone tell me which OS and what I would need to do to getit
>>> up and running?
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>> jack
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "[PiDP-11]" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>> an email to pidp-11+u...@googlegroups.com.
>> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/
>> pidp-11/2e236091-759a-4184-aec5-aee39f7b3951%40thereinhardts.org.
>