News from Sustaining Members

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 33

“Sustaining Membership” of the British APL Association is available to any company trading in APL products or services. It provides a tangible way for such companies to express their commitment to APL and 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 for distribution amongst 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 support of the following organisations that have become Association Sustaining Members.

As usual, we have a wealth of news from our sustaining members since the last issue of VECTOR. The increasing size and apparently continuous activity of this core of the British APL community reflects a growing and more active interest in APL in the U.K. and overseas.

APL People¶

The APL People support team has been hard at work extending the communications and graphics software on the IBM PC using APL*PLUS/PC. They believe they have the cheapest PC to mainframe communications system in Europe.

The graphics software now works at a resolution of 700 by 700. It will also give 70 lines of text on screen or plotter at very low cost.

APL People’s modelling team is supporting a client on a large transportation project in Chicago. They have found IP Sharp’s network very useful to keep the communications in civilised hours - although much of the work is being done on PCs.

The demand for APL staff is still exceeding the supply of practitioners. Because of this the company is developing APL aptitude tests for trainees and they plan to validate these tests with the help of experienced APLers.

APL*PLUS Limited¶

APL*PLUS are pleased to announce that they now offer the STATGRAPHICS package, which provides interactive software for Data Analysis, Data Management and Statistical Graphics on micros and mainframes. STATGRAPHICS is an integrated system of over 350 functions, covering all major areas of statistical analysis, and is designed to provide a flexible, user-friendly environment for serious statistical computing. A key characteristic is the extensive integration of graphics directly into the statistical procedures. Graphical output can be generated by simply pressing selected function keys, and the graphics displayed on the screen can be easily dumped to a printer or routed to a pen plotter. Options are selected by direct editing of full-screen panels and the system has been designed to interface easily with popular micro packages and to encourage the addition of user-written procedures.

Cocking & Drury Limited¶

Cocking & Drury are looking forward to their new role as distributors for APL*PLUS products in the UK. Several APL*PLUS mainframe installations are imminent, and they are currently carrying out an internal evaluation of UNIX based supermicros for use with APL*PLUS/UNX. The company is continuing to expand its consulting and education activities, and will also be announcing a number of new products over the next few months. Among these is an APL-to-DIF file interface, which is currently undergoing beta-testing at selected customer sites. Anyone wishing to keep up-to-date with Cocking & Drury’s activities should ask to be included in their newsletter mailing list - contact Liz Swann at the London office.

Dyadic Systems Limited¶

Dyadic has announced an implementation of Dyalog APL for the IBM/PC AT. Dyalog APL for the PC AT runs under Xenix, is multi-user and supports large workspaces. Indeed when using the virtual workspace option, up to 3 users may have active workspaces whose combined size far exceeds the amount of memory (a maximum of 3 megabytes) installed. The implementation for the PC AT is a complete one containing all the features of Dyalog APL found on larger systems.

Dyadic has also announced a session manager which provides a full-screen front end to Dyalog APL. It records input/output in a session log and allows lines to be recalled for editing and resubmission. The session manager is a run-time option which may be selected whenever Dyalog APL is invoked.

Inner Product Limited¶

Whilst retaining its presence in the consulting and general APL support market, Inner Product has been extending its range of software packages which run under APL*PLUS. Three major new products are now available; two of these - a LOTUS 123/APL interface and a dBaseIII/APL interface - both serve to extend the use of APL for passing data between different proprietary packages; the third, CEMAS, is a package for analysing the European Monetary System and Common Agricultural Policy of the E.E.C.

MetaTechnics Systems Limited¶

MetaTechnics Systems announce the release of MetaPack, a comprehensive Utilities Package for APL*PLUS/PC. MetaPack comprises MetaScreen (an AP124 screen management system), together with NI (numeric input and editing), Browse (screen-based viewing of reports and text files), Toolbox (APL utilities collection) and MetaWS (a program filing system for large APL systems). Interestingly, many APLers have expressed the most interest in the Assembler versions of several functions; MAKEMAT & MAKEVEC convert delimited vectors into matrices and vice-versa, and IOTA & MEMBERSHIP provide table look-up facilities. MetaScreen will continue to be available as a product in its own right.

Overseas readers will be interested to know that MetaTechnics are currently talking to possible dealers and distributors in various market areas and have already agreed for Sim-Corp, Cybex AB and Metaplan AB to become dealers for their product range in Scandinavia.

In conjunction with Volvo of Sweden, MetaTechnics Systems have developed a system linking APL*PLUS/PC to the IEEE interface bus for controlling laboratory instruments and data-logging equipment. The package requires the use of the TECMAR IEEE 488 interface card.

Continuing with a Scandinavian flavour, MetaTechnics have agreed dealership terms with Andreas Buch, the Norwegian developer of ADAPTA DLS. This is a unique system for scheduling production and purchasing in process manufacturing industries, such as food, drink and chemical manufacturing. It has been found to save process manufacturers an average of 1-2% of their annual turnover. ADAPTA DLS is written in APL and will run on the IBM/PC XT.

MicroAPL Limited¶

For some time now, MicroAPL have been aware of the increasing need of end-users and programmers alike to operate in a total APL environment. To this end, they are launching a new concept for all APL users called I.A.S. - the Integrated APL Service. I.A.S. is a brand new approach to APL programming. It draws together the often disparate elements of an APL system into a comprehensive corporate structure.

I.A.S. consists of a number of APL modules which can be combined into an APL service of any size, from a single-user system to a company- wide APL network linked to a mainframe. The modules are all designed to work together and include, amongst others, micros and supermicros, terminals and printers, plotters, modems, networking, utility software, applications software, on- and off-line links to both mainframe data and other software (such as Lotus 123), maintenance, support, consultancy and training.

Customers who adopt the I.A.S. strategy are assured of a planned, expandable APL service which integrates mainframe APL systems and corporate data, high-powered APL systems based on MicroAPL’s Mirage machines, and smaller PC’s such as the QL and IBM/PC into a coherent, distributed processing system. I.A.S. is primarily intended for organizations already using APL, although APL newcomers can benefit from the system by planning their growth into I.A.S. from the start.