News from Sustaining Members

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 25

The category of “Sustaining Membership” of the British APL Association is available to any company trading in APL products and services; it is seen as a formal statement that these companies regard APL as more than simply another programming language, and is intended to promote increased interest and activity in APL and in the Association.

As well as receiving public acknowledgement for their sponsorship of the Association, sustaining members receive bulk copies of VECTOR to distribute to their customers, and are offered the opportunity to submit news material for this section of the Journal. They are also able to submit announcements for Association meetings (subject to the approval of the Activities Officer) and are invited to inform APL users of their products via seminars and articles.

The Committee of the British APL association would like to acknowledge the generous financial support of the following organisations that have become Association Sustaining Members. In many cases these organisations also provide manpower and administrative assistance to the Association at no cost.

Despite the inevitable pressures of work and the competing attractions of their summer holidays, almost all of these companies have managed to get their news items to us in time for the print deadline.

APL*PLUS Limited¶

APL*PLUS have been extending the list of IBM PC compatible machines on which APL*PLUS/PC is available. At the latest count it includes Wang PC, Olivetti M24, Eagle, Compaq, AJ Passport, Corona, Columbia, Ericson/Step One and ITT XTRA/OC. They have also announced Volume 1 of a tool kit as an optional addition to APL*PLUS/PC. This package of utility systems covers IRMA support for 3278 communications, full-screen management, RAM disk, a report formatter and various development aids.

APL*PLUS/UNX is a new full-featured APL for the UNIX operating environment. It has virtual workspaces (if the hardware supports them), plus additional features such as shared file, full-screen editor, windowing, error-handling, nested arrays, etc. APL*PLUS/UNX also does partial compilation of functions, which results in a 2-3 fold speed-up over tokenised code.

STSC’s APL compiler will be available on their timesharing service from September. In addition customers will be able to purchase the compiler support package enabling them to run compiled code in-house; this will be available by November for APL*PLUS/1000 customers, and in the New Year for VS-APL sites.

Cocking & Drury Limited¶

Cocking & Drury have recently installed the first two copies of their AFM file system in the U.K. The first company wanted to provide integrated databases using AFM’s shared file capability, whilst the second chose AFM primarily for its improvements in access time and storage requirements.

The company has been involved in A.I. work for some years, but has not been able to talk much about the projects they have worked on. However they will shortly be publishing a management overview to A.I., including an appraisal of current work on expert systems.

Cocking & Drury continues to grow. Recent arrivals include Caroline Hewson, Minaxi Patel and Bernard Perkins — making 18 full-time APL consultants.

Dyadic Systems Limited¶

In collaboration with its US distributors, Dyadic has recently announced implementations of Dyalog APL for the Convergent Technology Miniframe and Megaframe, AT & T’s new 3B2, Sun 68000 and the very fast Pyramid Minicomputer. These versions are also available in the UK and Europe. Back at home, Dyadic has completed two new MC68000 implementations — the NCR Tower and Hewlett-Packard’s HP9000-200. This brings the total number of implementations to 18.

Dyadic has signed an OEM deal with Modern Business Technology enabling MBT to market an enhanced version of Dyalog APL on its newly announced MC68000-based processor, the MBT 10/40. MBTAPL is also available on Torch computers. In addition, MBT is marketing Dyalog APL on Fortune 32-16 systems.

MicroAPL Limited¶

MicroAPL’s SPECTRUM supermicro has been enhanced with a hardware change which speeds up CPU-bound jobs by about 25%. Basic SPECTRUM prices have remain unchanged since its launch in 1981. During that time CPU speeds have doubled, the number of RS232 ports has trebled and the basic memory has been quadrupled. At the same time more free software is included with the machine.

Testing of the GDDM emulation software (see previous VECTOR) is going well, and it will shortly be made available commercially. The emulation allows APL users to access graphics devices using a protocol compatible with IBM’s AP126, with all the low-level GDDM calls fully implemented. It will run on all MicroAPL’s Mirage-based machines, including the Sage IV and SPECTRUM.

The widely-used statistical packages GLIM, GENSTAT and the NAG statistial subroutines will shortly be available on MicroAPL equipment. There will be an interface from APL to these packages, allowing users to combine APL’s easy manipulation of data with the use of standard, well-tested statistical software.

The latest recruit on the sales side is Paul Thornton, formerly of Burroughs and of Hart Computers. Paul will concentrate on U.K. end-user sales and deal particularly with new customers. Luan Thompson has been promoted to Director of Research & Development, and will be taking responsibility for both hardware and software development.

I.P. Sharp Associates Limited¶

The price of SHARP APL in-house has been reduced to approximately £1000 per month or £25000 for a long term licence. The system provides significant extensions over other IBM mainframe APL’s. In addition a range of optional system software and application products allows users to acquire a system geared directly to their individual requirements.

In response to demand from their in-house customers, I.P. Sharp have developed a 4GL product called “VIEWPOINT”. Directed at the same market area as products such as FOCUS and NOMAD, it requires no APL knowledge and makes sophisticated use of full-screen techniques. Of course, being written in APL it has very significant advantages in terms of applications development and customisation. VIEWPOINT is available in September and prices start at £1000 per month or £25000 for a long-term licence.

James Martin will be a key speaker at this year’s User Conference in Toronto on 15-17 October. The meeting will concentrate on the opportunities provided by combining APL with the Information Centre. A number of Sharp’s inhouse customers have also agreed to host visits to their data-centres to explain their current and planned use of APL. This will provide a unique opportunity to see a number of large and sophisticated APL users and to discuss how they have approached the problems inherent in running large Information Centres.

On the personnel front, Theo Sahlsberg has been appointed European Manager of Distributed Software in recognition of the increasing importance of in-house software sales to I.P. Sharp’s product range. Theo was previously manager of I.P. Sharp’s Stockholm office.