Jim Gilbert wrote:
> I received a request from our IT Director today...
> He asked me to log onto the HP website and see
> if they had a compiler for the language APL.

APL is an interpreted language. Just for grins, we used to solve problems by
having an APL program that would construct an APL routine and then execute
it. This is easier to do than in a compiled language like COBOL. But, of
course, it is quite reprehensible in either :-)

There *are* compilers, but they take your APL and write C, or machine code,
or something. I mean, where's the fun in that?

> I have no idea why, but I went and poked around the
> 3000 section of the HP site and found almost nothing
> there at all, especially with regards to languages for
> the box.

It has all been eroded.....

> Does anyone know if there is an APL compiler for the 3k?

On the dear old Series III/MPE III that I started with (c 1979, but
sshhh...), you could get APL.

You bought the software interpreter, a hardware assist board, and however
many APL terminals you needed.

I still have my copy of the HP3000 APL manual in my loft, plus all the code
listings (long ported elsewhere) for a factory scheduling system.

Even within the Classic series, I think this was unobtainable from the
Series IV/MPE IV onwards.

> And I suppose more importantly, if there is, why?  :o)

At the time, it was obviously thought to be a *good thing*. But it ran like
a dog, and so did the machine it was running on, for everybody else, when
you ran it. Well, no, actually that's unfair to dogs......

And it wasn't big on multi-user (APL is something of a 'me and my huge
corner' language), so what was it doing on an MPE box?

Anybody who asks for APL on the HP3000, though, clearly has an unstated
underlying business need which they have couched as a potential solution.
Possibly well, possibly badly; you have no way of knowing. So your most
important 'why' is not 'why has the HP3000 got (or not got) APL?' but, to
your IT Director 'why did you ask that question?'

In the meantime, have a dig around in:

http://www.rexswain.com/aplinfo.html

I found this in Google by typing 'free APL'. Superficially more attractive
links higher up the list don't seem to have been updated all that recently,
or have 'free' a little too far away from 'APL' for my pocketbook.......

--
Roy Brown

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