News from Sustaining Members

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 17

Dyadic Systems Limited¶

Dyadic Systems has now released Dyalog APL Version 4.0. The new release contains a number of significant enhancements and performance improvements. Foremost among these is a facility for user-defined operators, which is 100% compatible with IBM's APL2. Version 4.0 also supports function assignment and display. Not only is this feature invaluable for debugging operators, it has many interesting uses and will be a great aid in teaching APL.

A new system function, ⎕MONITOR, measures cpu and elapsed time spent in particular functions and lines of code, and will help Dyalog APL users to speed up their applications, by identifying those parts which consume the most resources. A number of enhancements to the session manager, forms manager, and full-screen editor are provided; and there is a new translate-table facility for extended terminal and printer support. Performance has been improved by an overall factor of 2 compared with Version 3.0, with even greater gains in speed for particular operations.

Mercia Software Limited¶

Mercia Software are continuing to expand their range of APL-based software and services. As well as supplying and supporting STSC's range of software based on APL*PLUS/PC, they now have four new products which may be of interest to VECTOR readers. Their multi-user/multi-tasking APL*PLUS/PC uses Multilink Advanced software and Mercia's own APL utilities, enabling you to run up to nine APL terminals/tasks on an AT under standard PC DOS and standard APL*PLUS/PC. EXEC*U*STAT is a business analysis and graphics package written in APL*PLUS by the authors of STATGRAPHICS. There are also demonstration disks available for Unitab – an APL spreadsheet and data entry system – and for The APL Debugger, for even greater APL programmer productivity.

On the training front, Mercia's APL courses are still proving popular, and they anticipate a good response to their new course on "System Design with APL*PLUS/PC".

I. P. Sharp Associates¶

I.P. Sharp and STSC have agreed on a joint development project to create a complete version of SAPL in 'C' to be run under UNIX. Work is already in progress and a test version of the new product is expected early in 1987. In addition I.P. Sharp have negotiated special distribution rights for STSC's APL*PLUS PC product. This may involve a selection of IPSA's mainframe applications becoming available for PC APL.

LOGOS, a complete APL application development environment, is now available. LOGOS provides all the controls and facilities that are necessary for developing and maintaining large production systems. This is an area in which APL has traditionally been weak and one for which it has been severely criticised by DP management. LOGOS answers these criticisms and should enable the range of applications for which APL is appropriate to be greatly expanded. Despite the appeal of LOGOS to management, it also offers many benefits to the programmers themselves. The experience within IPSA is that programmers appreciate the tools available and that their ability to produce reliable systems on time is improved.

Details of Release 19 of IPSA's mainframe APL product are now available and include an interface to DB2 (AP127), a new system management information facility with direct links to SMF, and new security software (SACF) which provides a general interface to site specified access control facilities such as RACF, ACF2 or TOPSECRET. In addition a number of significant improvements to the efficiency of the interpreter, scheduler and other system software have been made. Also the option of running workspace slots in pageable memory has been provided. This allows sites to minimise page fixed memory requirements while still offering the high performance required by their most critical applications.

APL People Ltd¶

Our latest venture – a software company called predictably enough 'APL Software Limited' – generated so much interest at APL'86 that we have had our hands full evaluating all the weird and wonderful software packages which we were offered! For those of you who don't yet know, the objective of APL Software is to develop and market THE VERY BEST in APL system software not only throughout the UK but world-wide! In order to achieve this, we are joining forces with APL Software Technology Ltd (AST) of Sweden, and have persuaded Phil Goacher to join us and become Managing Director of the new Company.

Present offerings include:

APL2 software for screen handling, APL2 report generators, Powertools, RDS on mainframe VSAPL and on the PC, and STSC APL on the PC enhancements to pack data and to fix functions faster.

We hope there will be lots of exciting new software available very shortly to add to this list!

In addition, we are to become the UK agents for the American Software House, Interprocess, and it looks like our next move might be to set up an office 'States-side'!

Meanwhile, down in rural Bath, things have been pretty hectic as we try to follow up all the enquiries we received at APL'86 – writer's cramp and telephonist's elbow are beginning to set in!

Cocking & Drury Ltd.¶

At a successful APL86 conference in Manchester recently, Cocking & Drury launched several new significant products related to APL on micro computers and mainframes.

Release 6 of STSC's APL*PLUS PC now supports objects greater than 64k bytes, as well as introducing faster soft character set and support for the HP Laserjet printer. An upgrade from release 5 will be available early in September.

STATGRAPHICS Release 2, the already highly successful Statistics and Graphics package for IBM PC's and compatibles, was also shown for the first time in the U.K. New features include enhanced data management and graphics, new statistical procedures and significant improvements in performance and user interaction.

On the mainframe side, new products were announced for both VSAPL and APL2. For VSAPL, an SQL interface to STSC's APL*PLUS enhancements is now available offering similar capabilities to that under APL2. For APL2, delta-FMT introduces the recognised industry standard method of formatting data for reporting.

The COMPILER for VSAPL announced recently in the U.K. by Cocking & Drury is generating interest at large APL users, several of which are evaulating it.

Bookings are now being taken for Cocking & Drurys new four day Intermediate APL*PLUS PC course. The course covers a wide range of PC application development skills, from pure APL through to full-screen and design techniques.

In addition, delegates of the APL*PLUS PC course and all other courses offered by Cocking & Drury, will in future be given a free copy of POCKET APL, STSC's Introductory APL for the IBM PC.

MicroAPL Ltd¶

The summer months have seen MicroAPL developing its international distribution network for APL.68000 on the Macintosh, Atari ST and Amiga. In the US, the Spencer Organization has been preparing a substantial marketing campaign for the products, and MicroAPL's Sales Director, Grant Scriven, has been busy setting up distributors in France, Eire, Sweden, and Australia. Meanwhile, the Unix versions of APL.68000 have also been selling well, especially on the Sun and NCR Tower machines.

Meanwhile, in the UK, MicroAPL has been concentrating on its core business of providing customized hardware/software solutions to major clients, in some cases taking APL applications outside the traditional areas into process control and real-time financial dealing systems. In addition, MicroAPL's cooperative venture with International City Holdings to market their Treasury Support System (written by MicroAPL consultants, in APL) has been attracting a great deal of interest amongst corporate treasurers of large companies.

The pressure for space at MicroAPL's headquarters in Nine Elms became so intense that the company has now moved its sales and consultancy operations into pleasant new offices in Victoria. Those familiar with MicroAPL's early history will already know the location, which is in the same building at 19, Catherine Place, SW1, where the company started. The telephone number at Catherine Place is 01-834 9022.

APL86 saw the first public showing of MicroAPL's new implementation of APL.68000 for the Atari ST. The announcement attracted a lot of interest, since it represents a major step in making APL available on very inexpensive, popular machines. Not only is the product a full implementation of APL at a very low cost, but it also follows MicroAPL's policy of making APL easier to use, by taking full advantage of the Atari Windows/Icons/Mouse/Pull-down menus ("WIMP") interface. The implementation is similar to the very successful Macintosh version of APL.68000, which was also attracting much interest at APL86.

Also shown for the first time at APL86 was Version 6.0 of APL.68000, running on MicroAPL's recently-launched supermicro, the Aurora. We boasted that the combination was the fastest APL running at the exhibition, and a flurry of benchmarking followed. One APL user simply did not believe that APL.68000 was as fast as his benchmarks showed, but eventually he had to concede that we had not cheated by changing the clock speed on the machine! The impressive performance of the Aurora system has been achieved by using multiple 68020 processors, each with an optional 68881 floating-point processor, and also by optimizing the code of APL.68000 since we acquired it last year.

The MicroAPL stand also featured a special version of APL.68000, called MultiAPL and developed by the Spencer Organization in the US, which runs on a 68000 plug-in card in an IBM PC/XT/AT system. This gives very impressive performance and large workspaces, and is an ideal upgrade for users whose applications are too large to run well under APL*Plus/PC. In addition, the full multi-user file system of APL.68000 means that MultiAPL runs extremely well in networked applications using the Novell networking system. The IBM-AT which we are using to demonstrate MultiAPL was linked using MicroAPL's IAS software to the Aurora system, allowing side-by-side comparisons of speeds on the AT and on the Aurora, as well as demonstraing the ease with which IBM PC-family applications can be integrated with MicroAPL's supermicro networks.