On Apr 26, 3:08 pm, urbancamo wrote:
> Sorry for repeating myself, but does anyone out there have a set of
> the VAX APL Manuals?
>
> Thanks for your time,
>
> Mark.

I certainly don't have hardcopy. Would they have ever been available
on the CONDIST/CONDOC sets? If so any idea what timeframe? I do have
some moderately old ones of those but stored offsite so I can't look
at them now.

Rich

Rich Jordan submitted this idea :
> On Apr 26, 3:08 pm, urbancamo wrote:
>> Sorry for repeating myself, but does anyone out there have a set of
>> the VAX APL Manuals?
>>
>> Thanks for your time,
>>
>> Mark.
>
> I certainly don't have hardcopy. Would they have ever been available
> on the CONDIST/CONDOC sets? If so any idea what timeframe? I do have
> some moderately old ones of those but stored offsite so I can't look
> at them now.
>
> Rich

As far as I remember, VAX APL is a product that has been retired
quite early, before Alpha, I would say around 1990 but I'm not sure.
I'm almost sure it has never been published on CD at all. After product
retirement, its sources have been donated to DECUS. May be the sources
of the manuals followed the same way ?

I have been a user of VAX APL since its field test (around 1980) and
I still very well remember the LA120 teletypes that had a special eprom
to display the specific character set of APL. I still have my APL 360
manual and a few listings. Is that languqge still used today, can one
still buy a specific keyboard ?

--
Marc Van Dyck

With thanks to the excellent people involved in scanning and posting
the VAX APL manuals, I now have a working system

However, this of course means I now have a tonne of questions...

Something I can't figure out is how to get APL character overstriking
to work (for example to produce the domino character, or combining 'o'
and '*'). As far as I can tell the manual suggests in a DECWindows
environment that using Ctrl-D between the two component characters
will work, but it doesn't work. I've also tried the COMPOSE key to no
avail.

Marc: maybe you can shed some light? Maybe I'm missing something in
the
configuration.

Anyone interested can see a screenshot at
http://www.wickensonline.co.uk/publi...-apl-4.0-1.jpg.

I also have a VT520 which when I startup VAX APL as a VT320 displays
APL characters as mapped to the keyboard but I have the same problem
in using overstrike.

Oh, and as for the keyboard, well, if I can get APL working correctly
I may just bite the bullet and buy a 2nd hand one (yes, some people
still have the LK201 variant!)

Thanks for the help,

Mark.

Marc Van Dyck wrote:
> Rich Jordan submitted this idea :
>
>> On Apr 26, 3:08 pm, urbancamo wrote:
>>
>>> Sorry for repeating myself, but does anyone out there have a set of
>>> the VAX APL Manuals?
>>>
>>> Thanks for your time,
>>>
>>> Mark.
>>
>>
>> I certainly don't have hardcopy. Would they have ever been available
>> on the CONDIST/CONDOC sets? If so any idea what timeframe? I do have
>> some moderately old ones of those but stored offsite so I can't look
>> at them now.
>>
>> Rich
>
>
> As far as I remember, VAX APL is a product that has been retired
> quite early, before Alpha, I would say around 1990 but I'm not sure.
> I'm almost sure it has never been published on CD at all. After product
> retirement, its sources have been donated to DECUS. May be the sources
> of the manuals followed the same way ?
>

Hey, guess what? I was cleaning out a box of old stuff and found a TK50
marked as "VAX APL V4.0 Manuals in .PS format". The books are dated
from 1991, the saveset and tape were created in 1995. The files came
off the tape just fine (finding a TK70 drive was the fun part). I'll
convert them into PDF with Acrobat. I'll try to get them stuck on the
next freeware CD but in the meantime, if you want to send me some email
I'll send them. I didn't find any SDML Document sources (or whatever
they were written in), just the .PS files.

--
John Reagan
OpenVMS Pascal/Macro-32 Project Leader
Hewlett-Packard Company

In article , John Reagan writes:
>Marc Van Dyck wrote:
>> Rich Jordan submitted this idea :
>>
>>> On Apr 26, 3:08 pm, urbancamo wrote:
>>>
>>>> Sorry for repeating myself, but does anyone out there have a set of
>>>> the VAX APL Manuals?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for your time,
>>>>
>>>> Mark.
>>>
>>>
>>> I certainly don't have hardcopy. Would they have ever been available
>>> on the CONDIST/CONDOC sets? If so any idea what timeframe? I do have
>>> some moderately old ones of those but stored offsite so I can't look
>>> at them now.
>>>
>>> Rich
>>
>>
>> As far as I remember, VAX APL is a product that has been retired
>> quite early, before Alpha, I would say around 1990 but I'm not sure.
>> I'm almost sure it has never been published on CD at all. After product
>> retirement, its sources have been donated to DECUS. May be the sources
>> of the manuals followed the same way ?
>>
>
>Hey, guess what? I was cleaning out a box of old stuff and found a TK50
>marked as "VAX APL V4.0 Manuals in .PS format". The books are dated
>from 1991, the saveset and tape were created in 1995. The files came
>off the tape just fine (finding a TK70 drive was the fun part). I'll
>convert them into PDF with Acrobat. I'll try to get them stuck on the
>next freeware CD but in the meantime, if you want to send me some email
>I'll send them. I didn't find any SDML Document sources (or whatever
>they were written in), just the .PS files.

Can you put the .PS there too?

--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM

"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"

http://tmesis.com/drat.html

VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
> In article , John Reagan writes:
>>off the tape just fine (finding a TK70 drive was the fun part). I'll
>>convert them into PDF with Acrobat. I'll try to get them stuck on the
>>next freeware CD but in the meantime, if you want to send me some email
>>I'll send them. I didn't find any SDML Document sources (or whatever
>>they were written in), just the .PS files.
>
>
> Can you put the .PS there too?
>

I can.

--
John Reagan
OpenVMS Pascal/Macro-32 Project Leader
Hewlett-Packard Company

If anyone should ever become interested enough in APL-11 I believe I
have a hard copy of the last manual that was every published.

I would be willing to make a copy and ship it (expenses to be paid by
person requesting copy) if someone would like to have one.

Just curious: Has anyone seen a copy of APL-11 media recently? Since
APL-11 dates from so long ago, "recently" can be taken to mean within
the last 10 or so years :-)


I actually did some useful work with APL-11 way back in the early
1980's. A mechanical engineering lab at Lockheed Sunnyvale was data
matrices which needed various manipulations. I found a book in
Lockheed's library (long since gone, I imagine) with many APL
algorithms. The code they needed, primarily solutions and
determinants, was there and could all be done in the somewhat limited
-11 implementation of the language.

The size of the source code was almost trivial, typical of APL. All
the code I supplied them (written by others, tweaked by me) would have
easily fit on one side of a 3 in. x 5 in. card, probably in 14 point
type. Few were they who could actually read the code "cold" and
understand it, though...

The lab engineers were pretty impressed that APL could do so simply a
job they expected to be much more challenging.

The standard ASCII character set implementation of overstrikes in
APL-11 made any code look pretty strange, but perhaps not any stranger
than it would look with the full APL character set. I think we may
have bought the APL character set for a DECwriter at one point.

I even used to belong to the APL SIG.

> A mechanical engineering lab at Lockheed Sunnyvale was data
> matrices which needed various manipulations. I found a book in

Make that, was _getting_ data matrices.

The data was being produced by a machine that scanned high speed
camera footage for a white mark in the frame and spit out a stream of
punched cards based on the timing. The white mark was on the propeller
shaft of an Aquila RPV in static test, filmed as the engine started
up, ran for a while, and shut back down. I vaguely remember they were
doing some kind of modal analysis (whatever that means): the lab's
name was "Modalab" anyway.

This was all so long ago that the details have grown quite fuzzy. :-)

Galen wrote:

> Just curious: Has anyone seen a copy of APL-11 media recently? Since
> APL-11 dates from so long ago, "recently" can be taken to mean within
> the last 10 or so years :-)

$ search cd_contents.jan95 apl
VAX, VAX ACMS, VAX APL, VAX BASIC, VAX BLISS-32, VAX C,
VAX APL 4.0 020AA 5 [APL040]
$

It wasn't in 2004 and 2006 distribution.

I have 2 APL manuals:

APL An Interactive Approach
Second Edition Revised Reprinting
Leonard Gilman and Allen J. Rose Copyright 1974.


APL: une approche pratique
Maurice Dalois
Gouvernemenmt du Québec, Ministère de l'Éducation, Service Informatque
copyright 1980.

The second book (in french) was far better than the first one as a
learning tool. Better organised, better descriptions.

APL was one of the IT courses offered by many CEGEPs in québec (CEGEP is
2 years between high school and university). Most would dialup to
Univesité de Montréal to get the APL stuff. Our school had 1 decwriter
II and one VT-like terminal. This probably explains why the government
sponsored the development of a french language book on APL.

One of the big APL "timesharing" providers was Sharp based in Toronto
Canada and was used heavily by insurance companies.

Galen wrote:

> Just curious: Has anyone seen a copy of APL-11 media recently? Since
> APL-11 dates from so long ago, "recently" can be taken to mean within
> the last 10 or so years :-)
>

In the same box I found the TK50 with the VAX APL manuals, I also found
a set of RX01 floppies labelled:

"AS-5454B-BC, APL-11 V2.0 RT"

with a manufacturing date of 14-May-1980.

I don't know if the "RT" means "RT-11" or "run-time" or something else.

Needless to say, I don't have a system to read these on. Any suggestions?


--
John Reagan
OpenVMS Pascal/Macro-32 Project Leader
Hewlett-Packard Company

In article , John Reagan writes:
>
> In the same box I found the TK50 with the VAX APL manuals, I also found
> a set of RX01 floppies labelled:
>
> "AS-5454B-BC, APL-11 V2.0 RT"
>
> with a manufacturing date of 14-May-1980.
>
> I don't know if the "RT" means "RT-11" or "run-time" or something else.
>
> Needless to say, I don't have a system to read these on. Any suggestions?
>

Have you considered contacting the people at bitsavers to see if they
are interested in including it among their archive ?

Link:

http://bitsavers.org/

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980's technology to a 21st century world

Simon Clubley wrote:

> Have you considered contacting the people at bitsavers to see if they
> are interested in including it among their archive ?
>
> Link:
>
> http://bitsavers.org/
>
> Simon.
>

I've been in contact with Bitsavers folks in the past for older
documentation but not for this.

For bits, looking at http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11 they seem
to have dectape/rl01/rk05/various magtape/and some paper tape. I don't
see any RX01 archives (not to say they wouldn't take it).

I've looked over at trailing-edge as well and didn't see an obvious home.


--
John Reagan
OpenVMS Pascal/Macro-32 Project Leader
Hewlett-Packard Company

I have a set of RX02's hooked up to a MicroVAX II that still work.
I'll be happy to try reading the RX01's if you want to send them
along.

Bruce C.

John Reagan wrote:
> Simon Clubley wrote:
>
> > Have you considered contacting the people at bitsavers to see if they
> > are interested in including it among their archive ?
> >
> > Link:
> >
> > http://bitsavers.org/
> >
> > Simon.
> >
>
> I've been in contact with Bitsavers folks in the past for older
> documentation but not for this.
>
> For bits, looking at http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11 they seem
> to have dectape/rl01/rk05/various magtape/and some paper tape. I don't
> see any RX01 archives (not to say they wouldn't take it).
>
> I've looked over at trailing-edge as well and didn't see an obvious home.
>
>
> --
> John Reagan
> OpenVMS Pascal/Macro-32 Project Leader
> Hewlett-Packard Company

I'm pretty sure that I still have a VAX APL manual, circa 1986, in a box in
storage. If I do, I'll scan it to .pdf for you.

Can't guarantee when I'll be able to check into this - perhaps next week.


"John Reagan" wrote in message
news:g2c51o$8r0$1@usenet01.boi.hp.com...
> Marc Van Dyck wrote:
>> Rich Jordan submitted this idea :
>>
>>> On Apr 26, 3:08 pm, urbancamo wrote:
>>>
>>>> Sorry for repeating myself, but does anyone out there have a set of
>>>> the VAX APL Manuals?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for your time,
>>>>
>>>> Mark.
>>>
>>>
>>> I certainly don't have hardcopy. Would they have ever been available
>>> on the CONDIST/CONDOC sets? If so any idea what timeframe? I do have
>>> some moderately old ones of those but stored offsite so I can't look
>>> at them now.
>>>
>>> Rich
>>
>>
>> As far as I remember, VAX APL is a product that has been retired
>> quite early, before Alpha, I would say around 1990 but I'm not sure.
>> I'm almost sure it has never been published on CD at all. After product
>> retirement, its sources have been donated to DECUS. May be the sources
>> of the manuals followed the same way ?
>>
>
> Hey, guess what? I was cleaning out a box of old stuff and found a TK50
> marked as "VAX APL V4.0 Manuals in .PS format". The books are dated from
> 1991, the saveset and tape were created in 1995. The files came off the
> tape just fine (finding a TK70 drive was the fun part). I'll convert them
> into PDF with Acrobat. I'll try to get them stuck on the next freeware CD
> but in the meantime, if you want to send me some email I'll send them. I
> didn't find any SDML Document sources (or whatever they were written in),
> just the .PS files.
>
> --
> John Reagan
> OpenVMS Pascal/Macro-32 Project Leader
> Hewlett-Packard Company

In article ,
John Reagan writes:
> Galen wrote:
>
>> Just curious: Has anyone seen a copy of APL-11 media recently? Since
>> APL-11 dates from so long ago, "recently" can be taken to mean within
>> the last 10 or so years :-)
>>
>
> In the same box I found the TK50 with the VAX APL manuals, I also found
> a set of RX01 floppies labelled:
>
> "AS-5454B-BC, APL-11 V2.0 RT"
>
> with a manufacturing date of 14-May-1980.
>
> I don't know if the "RT" means "RT-11" or "run-time" or something else.
>
> Needless to say, I don't have a system to read these on. Any suggestions?

I can't do anything until I get back home in August but if no one has
done anything with them by then I can definitely read them. Be interesting
to see what's on them.

bill

--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include