Hi, Joey.

I'm posting this question in public because what I'm asking about may be of
somewhat wider interest.

I read about your essay in Vector entitled "What's Wrong with my
Programming?" ( http://www.vector.org.uk/archive/v223/jkt223.htm ) In
describing your first encounter with APL you mentioned being at IBM's
Boulder, Colorado site.

I moved to Boulder in 1972, and encountered APL about 1974. The Boulder
Valley School District had an IBM\370 145 under the MUSIC operating system.
In addition to using it for the internal needs of the District, they made
the machine available to students. Some 300-baud modems and one carefully
guarded APL Selectric typeball allowed a few of us at Boulder High School to
explore the startling world of APL. That exposure gave me the combination of
confidence and curiosity that came into play when, decades later, I chose to
learn J.

My question, here, is this:  Do you know anything about the history of that
particular machine or the people who helped make sure it was available to
students? I suspect there's no clear connection to you or anybody you knew
at that IBM location, but the computing world was even smaller then than it
is now, so I thought I'd ask.


Tracy Harms

P.S. One of the APL books from the IBM library you mentioned ended up in my
own collection. I don't recall how I came upon it, though.
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