Summary: Answers to common questions regarding the computer language APL.

Last-modified: Sat May 7 13:20:23 PDT 2022

APL Frequently Asked Questions (well some, anyway)
Maintained by S.W. Sirlin
Thanks to the many people who have contributed to this list.

5/2022 SAX for Linux

First, what is APL?
APL is the first array processing language (that I know of anyway).
The following was extracted from http://www.acm.org/sigapl/whyapl.htm [10/2015 gone].

The language was invented by Kenneth E. Iverson while at Harvard
University. The language, originally titled "Iverson Notation", was
designed to overcome the inherent ambiguities and points of confusion
found when dealing with standard mathematical notation. It was later
described in 1962 in a book simply titled "A Programming Language"
(hence APL). Towards the end of the sixties, largely through the
efforts of IBM, the computer community gained its first exposure to
APL. Iverson received the Turing Award in 1979 for this work.

APL is a user-oriented notation, particularly well suited for
communication from people to other people or to computers. The
notation consists of a set of symbols (letters, numbers, punctuation,
algebra, and special shapes), with a very simple set of rules (syntax)
for putting them together to describe the processing of data. The
data can be either numeric or literal (which includes words and text
handling).

In fact there are about a hundred different "primitive"
(i.e. fundamental to APL) operations which can be performed. This can
be compared to having a calculator with over 100 different function
keys.

Following the old Chinese proverb that a picture is worth a thousand
words, the APL symbol set is the equivalent of many words in
describing algorithms or procedures. Often one or a few APL symbols
(function) can have the same result as several lines of code in
another computer language or of several paragraphs in English.

Check out some of the web links or
books listed below for more information.
Wikipedia has a good overview as well
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language).

The questions I'm answering here are:
1. Where can I find APL for machine X?
2. How do I use APL on an XX terminal connected to machine YY?
3. What about APL keyboards/stickers?
4. Can I compile APL?
5. What tools exist for APL?
6. Can I get an APL font for X?
7. What information exists online about APL?
8. How do I get book Y?
9. What good APL books exist?
10. What user groups exist?
11. What's the latest APL conference?
12. How do I pass APL functions from one APL to another?
13. How do I write APL using only ASCII?
14. What about Unicode?

The primary format for this faq is html. I use lex and aplc to convert
this to a text version that is posted to the newsgroup. This used to
be autoposted, but MIT does not appear to do that anymore.
An old (2018) version is available at ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/
(where all the autoposted faq's are archived), in particular
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/comp.lang.apl/APL_language_FAQ.
Another place for (old) faq archives is http://www.faqs.org/faqs/,
with this faq at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/apl-faq/.

(1) Q: Where can I find APL for machine X?
A: APL SOURCES

A+ [1/2002]
A+ (aplus) is an APL dialect available (as source) under the GNU GPL for
various Unix, including Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD,
developed at Morgan Stanley by Arthur Whitney et al.
http://www.aplusdev.org
http://sourceforge.net/projects/aplus/
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AplInDebian
A wiki describing using A+ under Debian, in emacs to get the fonts.
The BAA has had some success in porting to Windows, see
http://www.vector.org.uk

APL\11
APL\11 is a freely available APL interpreter for UNIX (C),
thanks to Michael Cain. Currently has some bugs.
See also openAPL below. Port to FreeBSD available
(email: swsirlin@earthlink.net)
email: mcain@advtech.uswest.com.

APL92
APL92 (Mac, system 7.1), older APL90:
ftp://ftp.emse.fr/pub/lang/apl/[dead 12/2005]
Jean-Jacques Girardot
School Mines
St-Etienne, France
email: girardot@cambur.emse.fr

APLette [6/16/2010]
APLette is a java program written by L. Paris that
implements much of the language
See http://lparis45.free.fr/apl.html

APL2000, APL+Win (formerly STSC)[7/2016]
APL+Win (for Windows 2000 and newer), APL+WebServices,
APLNext Supervisor, APLNext Database Interface Tools

APLNow LLC d.b.a. APL2000
One Research Ct., Suite 325
Rockille, MD USA 20850
Main Tel: (301) 208-7150
Sales Tel: (301) 208-7150, Sales Fax: (301) 208-7151
Support Tel: (301) 208-7217, Support Fax: (301) 208-7151
Consulting Services Tel: (301) 208-7150
email: sales@apl2000.com
support@apl2000.com
consult@apl2000.com
http://www.APL2000.com
Canadian Distributor:
APL Borealis Inc.
P.O. Box 183
Lindsay, Ontario Canada K9V 4S1
Tel: 1-705-328-1681
email: info@aplborealis.com
http://www.aplborealis.com
International Dealers:
http://www.apl2000.com/intldealers.php

APL\3000 [9/7/2010]
An old (1970s) APL for the HP 3000, similar to IBM APL
SV. Now partly revived through HP 3000 emulation. Source code
exists but licensing cloudy (check news group posts).

APLX (was APL.68000)[8/2016]
APLX is no longer available from MicroAPL, however Dyalog is
hosting free downloads of the final (version 5.0) APLX
installation packages and documentation
WWW: http://www.dyalog.com/aplx.htm

APLSE
APLSE/LRNAPLSE (APL*PLUS v10 freeware, PCDOS, W95/98, NT, runs
under DOSBox, Android):

APLSE is a version of Manugistics/STSC's PC APL, available
with very little documentation. It can be found at
http://plj.myfreesites.net/APLse,
http://plj541.github.io/Tools/
http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/languages/apl/apl-plus/[dead]
http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/apl_archives/apl/apl-plus/index.html[dead]
http://www.sigapl.org/Archives/waterloo_archive/apl/apl-plus/index.html[copy]
http://www.dosbox.com/DOSBox, a DOS emulator for Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD
It is available for Android by GEMESYS at
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.gemesys.android.aplse
LRNAPLSE is a package
including APLSE, on-screen lessons (with additional
documentation), and the APL*PLUS Demo (more documentation).
Ask for a catalog of APL books and software from Dick Holt, dick_holt@email.com

Fonts under W95, WNT, (WME?) are troublesome. Here is some
information from Allan Zenth (allan.zenth@tryg.dk):
I tried to use APL-PLUS v.10 (essentially the same as APL SE) under Windows
95 and Windows NT. I don't know about Windows ME.
First the bad things: You cannot work in a window with symbols (only
full-screen) and using a code-page for symbols is not possible in NT.
The difficult thing is to have a stable full-screen situation and the most
difficult was NT.
1) Make a short-cut on the screen to the apl.exe file. Go into the
properties (right-click on the icon).
2) On the program-page refer to the bat-file in the command-line field an
set run to maximized
3) On the memory-page I use 1MB in EMS, XMS & DPMI - perhabs not important
4) On the screen-page set full-screen
5) On the misc-page remove the check-mark for Ctrl+Esc - Important to have
in APL
6) Go into C:\WinNT\Pif and make sure, that you have the same short-cut
here
7) Here should also be a short-cut for your font.com:
7a) On the program page refer to the file itself on the command-line, set
run to maximized and remove the mark in "close on exit" (important!!)
7b) The same alterations on the other pages as above.
8) If you use aplprint.com for function-printout it should be treated as
font.com
Try to use this method in Windows ME - it might be the way out.

APL*PLUS II/VMS, Statgraphics
This was distributed by Manugistics (formerly STSC) but now has
been taken over by APL2000 (above).
Manugistics
2115 East Jefferson St.
Rockville, Maryland, USA 20852
Tel: 800-592-0050, 301-984-5000, 301-984-5412, 301-984-5123
Fax: 301-984-5094
email: support: answer@manu.com
international: intl@manu.com
BBS: 301-984-5222

APROL
APROL (Scheme/J mix):
For information (7/15/98):
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~jhowland/aprol.paper.ps
email: jhowland@ariel.cs.trinity.edu

CAPLIB2
CAPLIB2 (Linux, DOS, HPUX, can be ported to other Unix) GPL interpreter, C library
Thomas Glen Smith
3154 W. Shady Lane
Neenah, WI
email: 76207.3343@CompuServe.com
http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/apl_archives/apl/CAP/index.html[dead]
http://www.sigapl.org/Archives/waterloo_archive/apl/CAP/index.html [12/2020]
The manual and BeOS port are available below. [12/2020]
http://www.apl2.de/ Possible future development
https://web.archive.org/web/20130207235225/http://double.co.nz/beos/apl.htm
The BeOS port.
http://files.mpoli.fi/software/PROGRAMM/GENERAL/CAP_MAN.PSManual