First Quarter

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 1

At the APL83 conference in Washington DC, Dyalog APL Version 1.0 was presented to an unsuspecting audience for the first time: the first second-generation APL interpreter, implemented on Unix – the operating system for the next generation of computers. Dyalog APL was clearly ideally positioned for the emerging markets of the future!

As the story you are about to read will show, the future arrived at its own pace, and it twisted and turned unpredictably, as the future always does. But although many of the initial assumptions which drove the decision to start the project turned out to be… er… optimistic, Dyalog APL and the team behind it persevered. They ‘hung in there’ and, after 25 years, Dyalog heads the pack of APL vendors as the leading brand. Not because the team had been able to predict the future accurately, but because of their dedication and ability to adapt the product as the future evolved.

We are very fortunate – not only with respect to getting the story ‘straight’ – that we still have the original implementers amongst us, and good relations with those who had to leave the company to pursue other challenges. The story of Dyalog APL and “How we got here” has been assembled and narrated by Stephen Taylor, based on interviews with current and previous employees of Dyadic Systems, Lynwood, the ‘new’ Dyadic Systems, and now Dyalog Ltd. It is a story about a product, the people who created it, and the environment in which it happened – not unlike Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling”. We hope you will enjoy reading it!