IBM Personal Computing in Schools

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 53

Edited by Paul Barnetson and published by Kogan Page Ltd 1988

This is a collection of 24 articles on using PCs in schools. Many of them are reports on the worthy use made of some 200 PCs installed with joint educational and IBM funding. As a survey of the use of IBM PCs in schools between about 1984 and 1987 it is of general interest. There are two articles that mention APL: “APL in Schools on the IBM PC” by Norman Thomson and “Extra-curricular Activities with an IBM PC” by Paul Barnetson himself. The latter is a much fuller description (but without any of the APL code) of the Charlton Chase system on which there were three pages in Vector 4.1.

Norman Thomson’s article is a 15 page introduction to APL. It is a justification of his assertion that APL is the best way to do mathematics on a computer. He gives functions for: odd numbers, arithmetic progressions, geometric progressions, square and triangular numbers, multiplication and other tables, prime numbers, factorising, perfect numbers, Gregory’s and Euler’s series, sums of reciprocals of Nth powers of integers, average, mean, variance, standard deviation, median frequency distribution and simulation of statistical experiments. It is clear and persuasive - it would be an excellent leaflet to circulate to school maths teachers. I would like to see the BAA reprint it and circulate it.