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
