On Fri, 25 Mar 2022 at 14:47, Carmen Vitullo <[email protected]> wrote: > > I don't want to keep dragging this thread around but I always wonders > what APL was used for? or what maybe our IBM guys was doing 8 hrs a day > on an APL terminal )
IBM used APL internally extensively in the 1980s, and I'll bet there are still some major APL apps extant. I remember on visits to various IBM locations when we were doing benchmarking and the like, that it was absolutely standard for all 3270s there (typically 3279s) to have APL keyboards, because it had just become the norm and people couldn't run their LOB apps without the right keyboard. I believe the HONE system (much talked about here in the past by Lynn Wheeler) was all or mostly written in APL. Charles quotes from a neighbour that ...certainly it has never been practical for system software except as a modeling tool... If he means for writing low-level things like exits,well sure. But it was also used at IPSA by sysprogs; their entire build and maintenance system for their Sharp APL product was written in, duh, APL. The install tape had a bit of JCL that restored an APL system, then you'd fire that up and all the source and object code, samplibs, etc. etc. was in an APL-based database, manipulated by APL-based editors and APL-based SMP/E-like maintenance tools.To say nothing of monitoring and network tools, config and management reporting, and so on. Very far from just a language for teaching algebra (though Iverson did write an algebra textbook using APL notation).* *Algebra: an algorithmic treatment Iverson, Kenneth E. LC : 72007276 OCLC : (OCoLC)627818 Menlo Park, Calif. : Addison-Wesley Pub. Co. Creation Date: c1972 Format: 361 p. ; 24 cm. Tony H. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
