Letter to the Editor

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 3

I was wearing my APL2003 shirt (very limited edition – 3 and counting) in Arizona last month and one of my sister’s friends commented on it. He was astonished to see APL mentioned as he had worked with it in the (late 1970s?) early 1980s in New York City for his father, Marvin Markowitz, who was apparently attempting to build an OS for a little computer IBM was developing at that time. Yes, he was one of several who lost out to Bill Gates and company.

I know this story sounds a bit suspicious – an OS in APL? – but I trust the source and he claims first-hand knowledge, not some friend-of-a-friend fable.

The other thing I find hard to believe, thought it’s certainly possible, was the existence of a fairly big APL group in NYC (during the time I was very active in the community) that I didn’t know about. I’ll have to ask this person to clarify if he was in the city or somewhere else in New York state.

Does anyone know anything about this? Maybe a Vector reader would have some recollection?