@Joey<mailto:[email protected]> detritus can have substantial value such as run off from farmland that fertilizes soil downstream.
the last 50+ entries in the thread more than answer many if not all of my initial questions, and stimulates more to follow in separate posts as I wend my novice way through the many much appreciated and welcome replies for which I gratefully thank the crowd of kind participants. This Jane ran not away from this forum. Thank you all! ________________________________ From: Chat <[email protected]> on behalf of Joey K Tuttle <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2018 11:43:36 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Jchat] How close is J to APL? I have followed this galloping thread and finally nostalgia is causing me to add to the detritus. For the last 50+ entries in the thread, I've been wondering - Did this [d]evolving discussion answer the original questions, asked a month ago, by "Jane the novice of J" <[email protected]> ? Or, did it cause Jane to run away from the forum laughing or ??? Jane (if you are still around), what say you? Clearly Jane's questions piqued a lot of comments. The APL character set has been an interest of mine for quite a long time. I, like many others, learned APL without having access to the APL characters (using an IBM1050 connected by phone, at 134.5 baud, to the "original" APL machine at IBM Yorktown Heights Research Labs - I was working for IBM in Boulder CO c. 1969) About the Selectric Type element - it came in two variations, Correspondence (IBM P/N 1167987) and BCD (P/N 1167988). The order of characters was different - the BCD variation was the only one supported on the 1050. The much classier 2741 was aimed at office workers rather than computer programmer/operators and introduced the Correspondence code set. If you were ordering a 2741 and specified the type element to be one of the APL ones, that determined the code set used to communicate with the mainframe. When using a 2741, APL (thanks to RDMoore) noted the first typed character in a login e.g. the ) in )2001:woohoo and selected the appropriate character table to deal with BCD versus Correspondence coding. If the first line was just the character ) then a line of overstrikes was made to obscure the login credentials. Lots of people rolled the paper up so they could reveal their login if they needed to check for typing errors. An amusing side effect was that TSO (Time Sharing Option of the IBM 360 OS, where hundreds of key pounding programers were engaged in the development of FS mentioned in an earlier message) would only support BCD coded communications. So, if someone ordered a 2741 with APL element 987, then TSO users were excluded from using that device ... Well, actually, the programmers usually called for a service guy to convert the 2741 to BCD which required mechanical replacement of the bars connecting the keyboard to the internal mechanisms (an hour or 2 of tedious work) to allow the terminal to work with TSO... Here is a picture of an APL (BCD) Selectric type element - http://bpi.1e6.com/APL988.jpg The discussion of printing APL at high speed also evoked lots of memories. My first job at IBM was testing the 1403N1 printer and the UCS feature (this was before APL existed...) A side note is that the UCS feature, which allowed the novel ability to print upper and lower case letters, was developed in part because a famous televangelist wanted to buy one to send large numbers of personalized letters to his flock. The individually replaceable type elements on the 1403 train (versus the chain, actually a belt with type elements affixed to it, of earlier models) made APL support possible. Here is a picture of some 1403 type slugs (as they were called) with APL characters on them - http://bpi.1e6.com/1403_UCS_APL.jpg You can see that the slugs travelled on a monorail and were gear driven (pushed) around an oblong track. There were 132 hammers (in a 13.2 inch span), on the other side of the 14 inch wide inked ribbon and fanfold paper. Those hammers being triggered, at the appropriate instant, to slam the paper against the ribbon and type slug. It was a very noisy operation, the model N1 had much larger covers designed to reduce the noise. Some clever people learned to play tunes on the 1403 by carefully arranging the text being printed... You can read more about various models of the 1403 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1403 Researching this stuff turned up some interesting pages that dive into things about APL and its characters and keyboards - http://www.rexswain.com/aplinfo.html Here is some information about the 2741 in general (including mention of APL) - https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/IBM_2741.html Ahh, the "good old days" .. > On 2018Jun 17, at 11:07, Don Guinn <[email protected]> wrote: > > When STSC came out with an APL for the PC I got quite good at reading the > extended ASCII characters as their APL equivalent. It was really great when > I finally broke down and bought the APL character generator chip from STSC. > > On Sun, Jun 17, 2018 at 10:26 AM Devon McCormick <[email protected]> wrote: > >> The APL print train we had on our IBM line-printers was adapted from a >> "library" chain because it had Greek letters on it. If you ever looked at >> the chain after it had been in use for a while, you would see one shiny, >> unused character on it: the lower-case lambda which was a remnant of the >> original chain but was not used in APL. >> >> On Sun, Jun 17, 2018 at 10:15 AM, Robert Bernecky < >> [email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> A few points: >>> >>> - The BGT (Blasted Goldball Terminals) were indeed noisy, but >>> they did make a better carbon copy than the 327X screens. >>> >>> - I wrote what was the first "teletype support" for SHARP APL, >>> I think in 1972 or 1973, for our University of Toronto in-house site. >>> Character mapping, was a nightmare, and none of us (Roger Moore >>> and I) were never happy with any of the schemes we used for them. >>> >>> - The APL-ASCII terminals came along later, in two flavors - "bit-paired" >>> and "typewriter-paired", due to the terminal manufacturers' inability >>> to agree on anything. These were either dot-matrix terminals >>> or "print wheel"-based ones. I think the latter were made possible by >>> the advent of small, inexpensive stepping motors. >>> >>> - We did have APL print trains on the 1403N1 printers with UCS. >>> The earlier 1403 printers, with print chains, did not have APL, >>> so this was A Great Advance. The print chains were not amenable >>> to local mods, but the trains had print slugs that you could replace, >>> to make a custom character set. >>> >>> Bob >>> >>> >>> On 2018-06-17 04:18 AM, Ian Clark wrote: >>> >>>> At the IBM Scientific Centre in Peterlee we had 3270-series terminals >> for >>>> APL characters from 1975, I'm pretty sure. But I learned my APL around >>>> 1973 >>>> on an EBCDIC-only 3277. No, I didn't use that absurd curly bracketed >>>> notation – the first mainframe APL I used was APLSV, which had separate >>>> 256-byte input- and output-tables as editable text files. If you had a >>>> spare afternoon you could customise them however you liked, and I >>>> cobbled-up a usable APL alphabet (small-e for epsilon, small-i for iota, >>>> etc) omitting the rarer characters like domino and covering them if >>>> needed, >>>> or copy/pasting the character from quadAV. >>>> >>>> When at last I was able to type real APL characters I didn't take to >> them >>>> at all – I couldn't read the code. >>>> >>>> But nobody ever read the code. APL was proud of being a Write-Only >>>> language. But I felt the shame. There I was, able to read assembly code >> as >>>> fluently as a newspaper, but I couldn't read an APL program I had just >>>> written. >>>> >>>> Fortunately I never had to use one of those blasted golfball terminals >>>> which sounded like a tommy gun. They were in heavy use by our project >>>> partners ADSS Mohansic for prototyping software (in APL) intended for >> the >>>> hush-hush FS (Future-Series) mainframe. When you walked into their lab, >>>> with a hundred APL programmers all beavering away, the noise was >>>> deafening. >>>> >>>> In those days computers were IPL-ed daily (Initial Program Load-ed) – >> and >>>> the FS prototype took longer and longer to IPL as emulation piled on >>>> emulation (I think they were using APL to emulate the instruction set!) >>>> Eventually it exceeded 24 hours, at which point the project was >> cancelled, >>>> to great staff and customer consternation. >>>> >>>> So the story goes. >>>> >>>> Shortly afterward, on one of my regular transatlantic jaunts, I referred >>>> airily in conversation to an "Iverson Ball". My interlocutor, a >> born-again >>>> evangelical, curtly informed me it was called the Iverson Printing >>>> Element. >>>> >>>> Ian >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sat, Jun 16, 2018 at 10:26 PM, Don Guinn <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>> Other problems. Never heard of a print train with APL characters for >> high >>>>> speed printers. Had to have a special type ball for Selectric >>>>> typewriters. >>>>> It wasn't until the late 1970's that teletype matrix terminals started >>>>> supporting APL characters. Likewise for 3270 monitors. >>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>>> >>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>> >>> >>> -- >>> Robert Bernecky >>> Snake Island Research Inc >>> 18 Fifth Street >>> Ward's Island >>> Toronto, Ontario M5J 2B9 >>> >>> [email protected] >>> tel: +1 416 203 0854 >>> text/cell: +1 416 996 4286 >>> >>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Devon McCormick, CFA >> >> Quantitative Consultant >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
