“A few of us at I.P. Sharp Associates ported SHARP APL to the PC when that came
out.”
Yes. I bought an IBM PC with APL installed from Isaac Ehrlick in 1983. And
ran it until the cards bent out of shape from repeated heating/cooling cycles
fifteen years later! I remember him saying when I
> Good algorithms win over tin.
I love that story, Bob. Not to mention the punch line.
Could you take a moment to copy what you wrote into the J wiki?
…To stop it disappearing into the bowels of pipermail – and I'll promise
I'll soon find an excuse to link to it.
On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 at 18:17,
Ah… PL/I. Spelt with a /I, not with a 1. The salesmen were most insistent
about that.
But no – I wouldn't exactly call it "unsuccessful" …
Salesmen-driven designs invariably succeed at what they're designed to do:
sell products. That's not to say they always work.
Back in the 70s when PL/I
I agree, Ian,
A few of us at I.P. Sharp Associates ported SHARP APL
to the PC when that came out. When IBM announced the
XT/370 expansion card for the PC/XT, we snagged a few
of them, probably with help from Lisa Fincato, our IBM
sales rep. And then, we got the AT/370 card, which was almost
And do not forget their efforts in software! They invented - and tried to
inflict on everyone, including me - that incredibly stupid and incredibly
unsuccessful language, giving it the arrogant name PL1. Having learned it at
the University of Toronto, I discovered there was no place within
> They misunderstood the PC. They thought it was just a toy and ignored it.
Not as I recall. Mainframe division understood it all too well. They fought
like hell in the early 80s to stop it happening. And to stop microcomputers
(the PC wasn't the first, or – as Bill Gates pointed out – the best)
They misunderstood the PC. They thought it was just a toy and ignored it.
On Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 7:09 PM Björn Helgason wrote:
> When i was a product manager there I was told that when we wanted to sell
> something the selling price should deliver at least 10 times more than
> cost.
>
> Less
When i was a product manager there I was told that when we wanted to sell
something the selling price should deliver at least 10 times more than cost.
Less than that they were not interested.
We are not in the fingers and toes business I was told.
That was 30 years ago.
They have been going
“ 13 layers of managers.”
The explanation of their survival is, I believe, their huge profit margins.
I still recall when they got a contract to electronically handle the Toronto
Stock Exchange trading system where they charged $18 per transaction. Their
cost of course was just a few
apl lives on even if ibm goes away.
it is really amazing that ibm is still around.
13 layers of managers.
Þann mán., 12. apr. 2021, 13:51 Raul Miller skrifaði :
> That's disappointing.
>
> Not surprising -- just disappointing.
>
> Still, there's J, there's Dyalog APL, there's GNU APL, and
It's not the end...
Log-On is taking over as IBM replacement, check out the announcement below:
https://log-on.com/2021/01/26/log-on-software-announces-log-on-apl2/
Log-On APL2 web page:
https://log-on.com/apl2-solution-page/
Best,
Eric
Le 12/04/2021 à 15:50, Raul Miller a écrit :
That's
That's disappointing.
Not surprising -- just disappointing.
Still, there's J, there's Dyalog APL, there's GNU APL, and there's k and q.
Not to mention various hardware array concepts, such as greenarrays and gpus.
And, maybe, IBM will go back up at some point?
Who knows...
--
Raul
On Mon,
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/apl2-whats-new
--
For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
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