News from Sustaining Members

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 13

Cocking and Drury Ltd¶

Cocking and Drury reported a high level of interest in the APL*PLUS Compiler, following the Whitbread sale and a recent customer mailshot. As a result, they are training consultants in the art of APL*PLUS compiler Technology. The first compiler consultant is David Ziemann, and others are expected to join him shortly.

The company is also pleased to announce a new second-generation APL interpreter for the micro-VAX and VAX range of DEC machines, running under the VMS operating system. The new product is based on APL*PLUS UNX, but boasts full integration into the VMS environment.

On the personal computing side, Cocking and Drury have announced support for APL* PLUS PC and Statgraphics for IBM’s Personal System/2 range of machines, and the Compaq 386.

In order to encourage the spread of APL in the academic community, Cocking and Drury are renegotiating their APL*PLUS PC Site Licence policy with STSC. A special offer to academic sites is expected before the end of the year.

The London office is on the lookout for new larger premises, a project which is due to be completed by the end of 1987. As well as to service continuing company expansion, the move will provide the greatly improved public course facilities required to meet fast growing demand at all levels.

A recent addition to Cocking & Drury’s ranks is Dave Phillips, who has joined as a Senior Consultant. Dave will be involved in the support of STSC’s mainframe products. Hiss MVS expertise will be invaluable in providing effective maintenance for the company’s ever growing mainframe client base.

Peter Cyriax Systems¶

Our interest in SQL and Databases has led us to develop links with DBAWG, the BCS Group working in this area. The principal topic at the moment is the forthcoming ISO Standard for SQL2 – but that is nearing completion, so there is increasing interest in more powerful (and friendly!) database languages supporting a wider range of applications. Our own Command Language, thanks mainly to APL, already has those sorts of features, so it seemed natural to become involved.

This should enable us to make our system conform to future high-level standards; and possibly help to get some APLish generality and flexibility into them.

Dyadic¶

As part of its new expansion program, Dyadic is pleased to announce the appointment of Andy Cooke as Sales Manager, and Andy Shiers as Customer Support Analyst. Andy Cooke joins Dyadic from Altos Computers where he was responsible for OEM and VAR business. Andy’s primary role will be to lead the marketing and sales activities for Dyadic’s expanding APL systems business based on the IBM 6150. Andy Shiers is an experienced Dyalog APL user, and a very welcome addition to Dyadic’s customer support team.

Dyadic has announced plans to develop implementations of Dyalog APL for the Apple Macintosh II and the Compaq 386. These new versions should be available before the end of the summer. Dyadic also intends to develop a version of Dyalog APL for the IBM Personal System/2 under OS/2.

Dyadic enjoyed a busy and interesting week at APL87 in Dallas. During the conference, Dyadic announced a firm commitment to compatibility with APL2, and demonstrated the recent addition of Selective Specification to Dyalog APL. Selective Specification lets you use a variety of expressions on the left of the assignment arrow, and gives you faster and more concise ways of writing APL statements.

At APL87, Dyadic also announced a powerful Nested Array Editor for Dyalog APL. This new editor will allow the user to browse and edit any array, containing both character and numeric data, and arbitrarily complex in structure. Data can be changed by normal editing techniques, or by assigning the result of an APL expression to a selected portion of the array. The editor is designed to be the basis of a powerful multi-dimensional spreadsheet package. In Dallas, John Scholes demonstrated the extremely fast screen-handling facilities of the prototype version. The first release of the Nested Array Editor is scheduled or the end of the year.

IP Sharp Associates¶

IPSA and Reuters have recently reached agreement whereby Reuters will acquire all the outstanding shares in IPSA. Reuters principal interest in IPSA is in its base technologies of interactive networks and databases. Reuters is also clearly interested in a number of financial application products.

Reuters intention is that IPSA will continue under its present management as a separate company and will continue the development and support of all of its existing product lines. The expectation is that current developments will be speeded up especially concerning IPSANET and the number and type of public databases.

IPSA’s joint venture agreement with SWIFT has now been finalised and the new company, Georisk, was incorporated in Belgium. The first product of this joint venture is STREAM, a comprehensive risk management and exposure system for international banks.

At APL87 IPSA demonstrated a new version of SHARP APL running under UNIX, called SHARP APL/UX. This APL is an implementation of Ken Iverson’s ‘APL Dictionary’ and includes many extensions to APL which make the syntax of the language more complete and more coherent than in earlier implementations.

SHARP APL/UX resolves a major source of discussion in the APL world by extending SHARP APL to permit heterogeneous arrays (as in APL2) without giving up the distinction between enclosed and disclosed representations of a scalar. SHARP APL/UX provides upwards compatibility with SHARP APL/370 and SHARP APL/PCX; conforms to the ISO APL standard; nd combines the benefits of a number of previous APL systems, including SHARP APL, APL*PLUS and APL2.

IPSA’s new APL for the IBM PC is now available. It is called APL-LAB/PC and is fully compatible with STSC’s APL*PLUS PC system Release 6.3 and also includes IPSA,s QPACK software implementing the SHARP APL Package data type. A Package is a special data type consisting of a set of named APL objects. QPACK is written in assembler and allows functions and data to be paged in and out from file much more rapidly than other techniques. QPACK is also available as an add on module to existing APL*PLUS PC systems.

Mercia Software¶

It seems that every issue of VECTOR brings news of more APL systems – and this issue is no different.

All the excitement now is about the new APL*PLUS interpreter for the Apple MACINTOSH. APL*PLUS/MAC is a full featured APL system, integrated with all the MACINTOSH user interface facilities – windows, icons, mouse, pop-up mens. It also has the advantage that workspace and object size is only limited by how much RAM you have in your machine, a good PLUS point for users up against the 640K (or 952K with an ALL card) limit of PC-DOS. At the time of writing, Apl for the MAC is priced at £310, so it is also cheaper than the IBM PC system.

LOGOL was formally released in April. Designed as a decision support system to plan and control the flow of packaged consumer goods and service parts through a multi-echelon distribution network, LOGOL is, we believe, the largest application system to have been developed in APL*PLUS/PC. With prices starting at £10,000 – it has to be the most expensive!

We have found that not only is the product quite unique, but that there is also a large market looking for such a system. As a consequence, many large UK organisations have shown an interest, and we hope to have our first installation in July.

MicroAPL Ltd¶

MicroAPL’s highly-successful implementations of APL.68000 on the new generation of small 68000-based micros – the Apple Macintosh, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST – now offer FREE run-time licences to developers. This removes the last obstacle in using APL to write commercial applications for small machines, and is particularly attractive to software developers because of the ease of porting applications between the three different machines. MicroAPL released a new version of the Atari ST product at Dallas in April, and will be issuing a new Macintosh version at about the time this edition of VECTOR appears.

The MicroAPL AURORA multi-processor supermicro – the system of choice for demanding APL applications – has been reduced in price, and has been supplemented by a new faster, more expandable model, the Aurora II, at the top end of the range.

Also new in the UK is a version of APL.68000 for the IBM PC/XT/AT and compatibles, running in a special plug-in card with either a 68000 or 68020 processor. Unlike other such cards, APL runs under DOS in this environment, so there is no need to learn special operating system commands, partition the disc or lose the advantage of the wealth of PC-DOS software. This new APL starts at £995 including the plug-in card with 1 Megabyte of memory, and workspaces of nearly 1MB and 4MB are attainable. The product is aimed at users whose applications are too large to run under APL*PLUS/PC, or who need the extra speed of a 68000 or 68020-based system.

APL People Ltd¶

The APL Group has not created or bought any new companies this quarter, much to the relief of the staff (and undoubtedly of the readers of Vector!) who are just about used to the current position. There were flutterings and rumours back in February of an exciting acquisition, but these have receded. As a result of our dealings we have recently persuaded Diana Mackay, ex-support manager of Sheffield Micro (a casualty of the PPL debacle), to join us and open our Sheffield office. From here, she will concentrate on servicing Midlands and Northern clients, and is responsible for the accounting software packages we sell to our Engineering customers.

APL Tran-Plan are still sorting out car-park design for the second largest group of architects in the world on their largest project, Canary Wharf in Londons Dockland. Current sections involve numerous trips to Chicago (?) and complex systems to organise the placement and ordering of all the road signs. I’m not sure when we finally get to drive our cars into the lovingly crafted spaces and pay through the nose for the privilege but watch this space.

APL People are now placing people internationally (three are off to New York in August) and have over 40 current vacancies on their books in the UK. There is an encouraging upward trend, with six software houses selling products written in APL joining the four firms of APL consultants as some of our more constant customers. Following on Roy Sykes’ keynote speech at APL86, we are excited at this development because it looks as if APL is finally gaining its rightful place behind the scenes in the software industry.