[For historical issues, it helps to spell out "Version" and "Release"
with the numbers:
J Version 1 was rather known as "APL\?" or "APL90 J" as
presented in http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/J1990a.htm#intro
J Version 2 - 7: = 1990-1993
J Version 7 (open source) was then followed by the polished,
commercial, non-source "J Release 2". The never was something
called "J Release 1". (You are free to view the preceeding
versions as the "Release 1s", but it is in no way an official
designation.)
J Release 2 ...: = 1994 and later
]
Henry Rich asked:
> How far back do you have to go to find an old system that allows an
> adverb as an operand to an adverb?
The AA bident is still working, and the question should rather be:
"How far do you have to go back to find an old system
which does *not* allow the AA bi-dent?"
> 7 didn't allow it, did it?
J Version 7 allowed it:
neitzel 422 > j7
J7 Copyright (c) 1990-1993, Iverson Software Inc. All Rights Reserved.
0!:0 'uname -a'
ULTRIX ips 4.4 0 RISC
APLscan =. /\
+ APLscan 1 2 3 4 5
1 3 6 10 15
as did
neitzel 426 > j
J5.1 Copyright (c) 1990-1992, Iverson Software Inc. All Rights Reserved.
which is the oldest version I have still running and which supports AA.
The AA bident was first introduced with J Version 3.3:
Changes in Version 3.3, 1991 06 25
[...]
a-trains implemented
c-trains implemented
(I cannot find the AA bident yet in the blue "Tangl.Math + DoJ" booklet
which must be Version 2.9ish or even 3. It is listed in the J Version 4
DoJ.)
While I saved the CS department's decsystem from being scrapped and still
operate it 24/7, my even earlier J Versions were binary-only (DOS), and
almost vanished along with the my office's PC-XT which mainly served
as terminal hooking into our Unix systems.
But I found a "floppies.tgz" from that time with J Version 2.9,
fired up "dosemu", and so here is a "pre-AA J:"
https://www.gaertner.de/~neitzel/img/no-aa-j29.jpg
The list of possible trains was the same for J Version 5.1 - J Version
7. J Release 2 added further ones, such as A0 V1 V2.
J Release 5.1 [2002] did away with the more complex bi/tridents:
* All tridents (dictionary Section II F) other than the
verb-verb-verb case no longer work.
* All bidents (dictionary Section II F) other than the verb-verb,
adverb-adverb, and conjunction with an argument cases no longer
work.
IIRC, the reason stated for the removals was "are in the way for improved
debugging". Did it improve?
(I am asking because I didn't bother to do anything with J Release 5.x/6.x
myself for licensing and src reasons. I remained a happy camper with
J Rel. 4, and still run it on more obscure systems such as the Sharp
Zaurus.)
Martin Neitzel
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