> That brings up an interesting question... How DID the APL character set get > designed? Some IBM graphic designers? Ken? Who?
I believe it was Ken Iverson. It can not have been a mere graphic designer because the design is too exquisitely good for that. Some discussions on the topic: *The Design of APL <http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLDesign.htm>*(section 2). *APL\360 History <http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/apl360history.htm>*. Search for "design of the typ" [sic], two occurrences. *APL Quotations and Anecdotes*<http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLQA.htm#mnemonic>, starting at the exchange between Brooker and Iverson. *My Favorite APL Symbol <http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/log.htm>* On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 3:25 PM, Skip Cave <[email protected]> wrote: > As Eric has pointed out, J has carefully picked related pairs of ASCII > characters which graphically show the connection between related functions. > APL did this as well. The problem arises when we realize that there are > many J primitives in related groups which don't have any APL characters > that would fit, and neither are there any sets of unicode glyphs which have > the appropriate graphical characteristics that would suggest that > relatedness. > > It is clear. To do the J-to-single-glyph conversion right we would need > some new glyphs. That would likely require an expert graphical designer who > was also either a mathematician or a programmer, who could express the > functionality AND the relatedness of related primitives in a single glyph. > Good luck with that. > > It could be done by someone with the right skill set, but who (or what > group of people) would that be? > > That brings up an interesting question... How DID the APL character set get > designed? Some IBM graphic designers? Ken? Who? > > Skip > > > Skip Cave > Cave Consulting LLC > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
