APL86 Fun and Games

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 80

After Monday dinner the hall settled down in anticipation of Dave Ziemann’s games evening.

An APL multiple-choice knockout quiz was first on the agenda – the APL Superquiz. A question was posed, and 4 possible answers given. We had to indicate our choice of answer by standing by one of the appropriately labelled pillars in the hall. Only those with the correct answer being allowed to continue to the next question.

The questions started off ‘straight’ eg. “Is the result of executing the matrix inverse of 2 a RANK ERROR, 0.5, 1 or 2?” (0.5) and “How many characters are therein the shortest possible VS APL expression producing an INDEX ERROR: 2,3,4 or 5?” (5). They soon degenerated to the likes of “Does the ‘E’ in Kenneth E Iverson stand for Eugene, Eustace, Eric or Edward?” (Eugene), and “Was the song APL Blossom Time first performed at APL81, APL82, APL83 or APL85?” (APL81).

It didn’t take long to reduce the assembled to a few inseparable stalwarts following the first person who looked like they actually knew the answer. (I wonder what would have happened if they chose the wrong answer?). A few cunning questions finally broke their resolve however, and the IPSA and Cocking and Drury donated prizes of a Sharp APL PC interpreter and a Pocket APL interpreter were won by Fergal Golding and Jim Brown – two APL86 stewards with little knowledge of APL. So much for the experts!

Dave then added a little spice to the next days debate by calling upon the principal protaganists: Jim Brown(the APL2 one) and Neil Mitchison, to each captain a team for ‘APL Name That Tune’. Each team was supplied with an identical set of APL symbols on pieces of cardboard. A snatch of music was played – something with a reference to APL in the title or artiste’s name, and the first team to hold aloft the appropriate APL symbol gained the points.

It all appeared simple until, when faced with a right arrow symbol for instance, you realise that it could represent TAKE, DROP, ARROW, GOTO, BRANCH, ASSIGN, IS, GETS or FIRST. Not only had the contestants to listen for many key words, but horrible puns were also allowed, eg. Cracklin’ Rose by Neil Diamond (RHO and DIAMOND). Overstrikes were also permitted, so both quad and divide had to be held up for the Fats Domino song!

The choice of music was deliberately catholic eg ‘Bolero’ by Ravel (,), ‘Della and the Dealer’ by Hoyt Axton (DEL, AND and QUESTION MARK) and for a truly international flavour ‘Waltzing Mathilda’ (TILDE) and ‘Wunderbar’ (W).

Neil’s team seemed to always have the edge, though Jim Brown never gave up – at one stage holding up all their cards at once in a sort of APL Name That Tune system crash. Neil’s team never lost the lead, but graciously shared the prize of 3 bottles of champagne (donated by Inner Product Ltd), with the losing team. One-nil to Neil, but who would win the AI debate?

The organised hilarity at an end, ’twas time to repair to the bar.