HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dspascha@eos.ncsu.edu (DAVID SCOTT PASCHAL)
Subject: Re: 3 questions
Originator: dspascha@c00082-100lez.eos.ncsu.edu
Reply-To: dspascha@eos.ncsu.edu (DAVID SCOTT PASCHAL)
Organization: North Carolina State University, Project Eos
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 02:09:38 GMT


In article <1992Sep11.132246.12645@rhrk.uni-kl.de>, bootz@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Michael Bootz) writes:
|> In article <18ot9rINN67t@matt.ksu.ksu.edu>, holland@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Rich Holland) writes:
|> > Question 1:
|> > -----------
|> >   How do I determine if the user is at the command line?  I've been thinking
|> >   about writing a TSR to intercept keypresses at the DOS command line and
|> >   expand TABs to full filenames (like tcsh does).  
|> > 
|> [Question 2..3 deleted]
|> If the actual PSP = PSP of command.com ==> user is at command line.
|> (PSP= program segment prefix)
|> see Ralf's Interrupt list, 
|>   Int $21, fct $51 to get PSP
|>   Int $21, fct $52 for format of MCB (memory control block)
|> the MCB contains the name of a program, here command.com
|> the MCB of an PSP is located 16 bytes before the PSP

DOS versions prior to 4.0 do not put the name of the owner process in the MCB.

One thing you could check is whether or not the parent PSP field in the current
PSP is zero.  For some reason COMMAND.COM (even child copies) like to zero out
this field, making it nearly impossible to trace back to the original shell.
Of course, other shells (like 4DOS) may not do this, so this may not be such
a great solution.

Tschuess,
David Paschal
From: Mike Kent <70530.1226@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: NY/SIGAPL Program Meeetings
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 00:38:21 GMT


   Speaker:  Peter Welch, IBM

   Subject:  AGSS, IBM's APL2-based statistical graphics package

   Date:     Thursday, September 24

   Time:     5:30 p.m.

   Address:  North American Philips


   * * *   Upcoming  Meetings    * * *


   For once, we actually have some speakers lined up for future
   meetings:

            October     Chris Lee, Manugistics   APL*PLUS II, v.5
            November    Steven Deerhake          Interfacing APL
            December    Jacob Brickman           Defined Operators

   And some time in 1993:

                        Michael Kent             OOP and APL, revisited



Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: vpcsc4@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Emmett McLean)
Subject: Workspaces or Scripts (Which is better?)
Organization: San Francisco State University
Distribution: NA
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 03:12:08 GMT


When writting J applications I find that I usually
define verbs and nouns in scripts  (using 0!:2 and
0!:3) rather than in workspaces.    This allows me
to  write applications which can be easily printed
and ported.  However, there is  so much support in
the language for the workspace concept I wonder if
this approach is inefficient.    ( This feeling is
reinforced by the fact that the j-interaction-mode.el
file for running J under emacs doesn't support 0!:2
or 0!:3). Would anyone like to offer an opinion on
opinion on good programming protocol?


Also, if I develop an application using workspaces,
is there a clever method of rewriting all verbs and 
nouns into a script?

Thanks,
Emmett vpcsc4@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu

Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: JMARTIN@starlab.csc.com
Subject: Apology from CPCUG APL SIG Chair
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 07:18:00 GMT

Please excuse the posting yesterday (14 Sept 1002 13:23:16 GMT) of an item
entitled "CPCUG Presents a Workshop on J by Prof.  Donald B. McIntyre". 
Someone must have grabbed that text from BBS\APL messages that should have
been private, were addressed only to me, and that at 13:23 GMT I had not read. 
That was only a draft.  The item being prepared was intended as a handbill to
be passed out at the main CPCUG monthly meeting.  Several administrative
details that needed to be coordinated with other elements of the CPCUG had not
been settled and have in fact been changed.

I should have admonished the fellow helping me to remember to keep everything
private until it is ready for wide distribution.  I apologize for not doing
so.

Perhaps the party posting that notice had not observed that not more
frequently than once a month do I take the liberty of routinely posting here
(comp.lang.apl), for worldwide distribution, a schedule of CPCUG APL SIG
activities.  That has been justified because so many folks travel through the
Washington DC area that this may be deemed to be of more than strictly local
interest.

If the party posting the workshop material had realized that Donald McIntyre
will be conducting J workshops in ten or more other locations throughout North
America during September and October they might have been a little less quick
to broadcast our local doings.

I had thought about approaching others involved with McIntyre's trip to see if
we could construct a single announcement for The Net with appropriate
administrivia tailored to the needs of each locality.  I had not gotten to act
on that, if someone wishes to take the initiative I will cooperate.

Sincerely, John A. Martin, Chairman, Capital PC User Group APL SIG

Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: agrtqb%irmfao01.bitnet@utcs.utoronto.ca
Subject:      APL Education mailing list
X-Acknowledge-To: <AGRTQB@IRMFAO01>
Organization: Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 12:23:11 GMT


This is to announce the creation of the APLEDU-L mailing list.

During the workshop on APL Education called by H. PEELLE at APL92, it was
suggested to create a mailing list specifically oriented to APL and education.

David G. Macneil, Director, Computing Services, University of New Brunswick,
Canada has accepted to create the mailing list on their computer.

The description of the mailing list is:

APL Education Mailing List
intercommunication among teachers and students using APL (at all levels).

Specific purposes are:

   - to share learning experiences
   - to exchange descriptions of teaching methods
   - to provide instant access to lists of appropriate instructional
     materials (essentially I-APL and J on-line)
   - to circulate good illustrative programs (perhaps using keywords for APL)
   - to pose interesting small problems for intellectual stimulation and fun


The address of the list is:

APLEDU-L@UNB.CA        (Internet address)
APLEDU-L@UNBVM1.BITNET (BITNET address)

To subscribe to the list you send a message to

LISTSERV@UNB.CA
or
LISTSERV@UNBVM1 (from bitnet)

with no name nor subject in the header, with the only line:

SUB APLEDU-L your_name

(no leading blanks). For example I would send SUB APLEDU-L Alain Delmotte.

To unsuscribe the message would be: UNSUB APLEDU-L.

There are other commands you can send specifically to the listserver for
example concerning suspending the mail, getting a help file, etc. Normally
a short introduction to the mailing list is sent when you subscribe.

In short, everything which concerns your link to the mailing list should
be sent to LISTSERV@UNB.CA (or @UNBVM1 for BITNETers); your postings to
the participants of the list should be sent to APLEDU-L.

We hope the list will prove usefull.

Many thanks to David G. Macneil for his support.

I take the opportunity to remind you the other mailing list on APL (APL-L)
at UNB; the procedures to subscribe and unsubscribe are the same as for
APLEDU-L.

Yours


PS. The mailing list is working with "digests", that means that the messages
are collected and are sent once a day (midnight :-))
From: gunner1+@pitt.edu (Jayant Rajgopal)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Subject: apl*plus to IBM/apl2 conversion problem
Date: 15 Sep 92 14:22:55 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

I'm a relative novice dabbling with APL, so please bear with me if
this is a dumb question !  I recently converted a bunch of workspaces
which were created on APL*PLUS (STSC, Inc.) into transfer files for
use with the IBM APL2 system on my PC.  However, when I try to run
programs in these, I'm running into a problem with a system variable
"quad"TCNL which APL2 does not recognize.  I have no idea what this
system variable does since the APL*PLUS workspaces were constructed
by someone else - however it appears to be something fairly trivial
since it's being used in the code for prompting data entry; e.g.
          []TCNL,'enter data'
My question: is there any way that I can assign a suitable value to this
system variable and save the same in the converted APL2 workspace so
that I can use the workspace.  Or do I have to edit each of the programs
in the workspace that uses this thing and remove it from them ?

Any and all pointers gratefully accepted...

--jr--

Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: rockwell@socrates.umd.edu (Raul Deluth Miller-Rockwell)
Subject: Re: Beginner J questions: local variables
Organization: Traveller
	<1992Sep10.184235.21427@csi.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 02:15:45 GMT

Lou Glassy:
.  bar =. '(+/ y.) % (# y.)' : ''
.  var =. 'bar *: y. - bar y.' : ''

.  what i'd like to do, is encapsulate bar y. in a noun local to the
.  var verb.  var is correct and straightforward, but it irks me that
.  it recalculates bar y. repeatedly when it doesn't have to.


You can encapsulate 'bar y.' in a noun local to the verb 'var', but
this value does not appear to be reused.  'bar' is used twice, but it
is being used on two different values.  For example:

var =. 'bar *: y. - local=. bar y.' : ''

...............................................................................

By the way, to revert back to a completely unrelated thread, you can
do on-the-same-line prompting on the PC if you invoke j without the
session manager.  As follows:

read  =. 1!:1
write =. 1!:2
prompt =. write & (<'CON')              NB. 'CON' must be capitalized
input  =. read @ 1: @: prompt

then try:   input 'Foo: '

If you've invoked j with the /s option, you will see the prompt.

-- 
Raul Deluth Miller-Rockwell                   <rockwell@socrates.umd.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: sam@csi.jpl.nasa.gov (Sam Sirlin)
Subject: Re: learn J using v.3.4 or v.5.1?
Originator: sam@kalessin
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 17:07:19 GMT


In article <BuEp9J.1vy@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, Richard J. Gaylord <gaylord@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> writes:
|> i want to understand j better and i have downloaded both v.3.4 and 5.1
|> for the Mac. the 3.4 has a terrific on-line help system which could

|> i know there must be written material for v.5.1 (what and where?) but is
|> it going to be as useful as the online help (which reallyis nice)?

You should get (at least) the ISI Dictionary of J, and Programming in
J, both available from ISI - you must have the address in your
distributions, but just in case:
        Iverson Software Inc.
        33 Major Street
        Toronto, Ontario, Canada  M5S 2K9
        Voice: 416-925-6096  Fax: 416-488-7559  
You can also try downloading the references file, and an intro to J
file Lee Dickey wrote.

|> my question is: if i use 3.4 to study 'j' will i be learning 'the wrong
|> stuff'? how much has the language changed from 3.4 to 5.1?

Pretty substantially. I'd say you can get started and get a feel for
the language with the old version, but abandon it quickly. Of course
if you're not familiar with APL to start with then 3.4 might be much
more useful. There is a list of changes in the status.doc files that
you should have (see the one for 5.1).

-- 
Sam Sirlin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory         sam@kalessin.jpl.nasa.gov

Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: Richard J. Gaylord <gaylord@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: learn J using v.3.4 or v.5.1?
X-Xxdate: Fri, 11 Sep 92 04:07:07 GMT
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d9
Organization: University of Illinois
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 09:05:42 GMT
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A6D5CBEB5F029B11@mm-mac17.mse.uiuc.edu>

i want to understand j better and i have downloaded both v.3.4 and 5.1
for the Mac. the 3.4 has a terrific on-line help system which could
greatly facilitate my studying the system and v.5.1 does not offer
anything like it.

i know there must be written material for v.5.1 (what and where?) but is
it going to be as useful as the online help (which reallyis nice)?

my question is: if i use 3.4 to study 'j' will i be learning 'the wrong
stuff'? how much has the language changed from 3.4 to 5.1?

suggestions and advice are appreciated.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: agrtqb%irmfao01.bitnet@utcs.utoronto.ca
Subject:      Correction
X-Acknowledge-To: <AGRTQB@IRMFAO01>
Organization: Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 07:59:53 GMT

Reference to my previous message about the directory of APLers available
at watserv1.

The file is called aplers.zoo and is in the languages/apl/comp.lang.apl
directory.

Sorry for the wrong information.

Alain Delmotte
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: 6035230@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM (Charles Schulz)
Subject: APL.68000 Level II for Mac experience?
Organization: Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, Inc.
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 18:35:09 GMT

I'm considering trying to port an APL2 application that currently runs on
VM/CMS and PC/DOS to a Mac version.  Does anyone have experience moving
to the Mac environment with this product?  I understand the language is
quite compatible via )IN / )OUT transfer format, but my specific concerns
are converting screen handling (AP 126/124) and file handling (AP
110/210) code.

/Charles A. Schulz
Tel:  408-742-5277
Fax:  408-742-2563
E-mail:  cschulz@lmsc.lockheed.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: hui@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM (Roger Hui)
Subject: Re: APLs for PC
Organization: Iverson Software Inc.
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 92 14:00:37 GMT

Charles Schulz writes:
 
> I remember seeing a recent posting requesting info on PC APLs for a 386,
> but I don't remember seeing an answer and can no longer access the past
> notes to see who it was to send that person an answer.
>
> Below I've attached the most recent FAQ I've seen from Sam Sirlin:
> this contains vendor contacts.  The commercial PC APLs are
> Manugistics/STSC (you mentioned), IBM, Dyalog.  Couple other shareware or
> freeware versions. ...
 
Iverson Software Inc. (ISI) is also a commercial PC APL vendor.
 
J is shareware and is available for the PC and PC386.  The PC386 version
includes a DOS extender and has no object or workspace size limits.
(Well, the limit is 2^31.)
 
APLIPC is shareware and is compatible with ISO-APL and mainframe SHARP APL.
It runs on PCs.
 
APLI386 is not shareware (but is cheap) and is compatible with ISO-APL
and the current release of mainframe SHARP APL (release 20).  It runs
on 386 PCs.  It includes a DOS extender and has no object or workspace
size limits.  ISI extensions include BGI graphics and a debug facility.
The debug facility traces function execution in a debug window, and 
execution can be controlled in a manner much more general and powerful 
than traditional APL stop and trace.

------------------------------------
Roger Hui, Iverson Software Inc., 33 Major Street, Toronto, Ontario  M5S 2K9
Phone: (416) 925 6096;  Fax: (416) 488 7559
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: Mike Kent <70530.1226@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Two user groups for Sam to add to the FAQ
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 19:48:11 GMT

[1]   NY/SIGAPL, the New York City local chapter of ACM SIGAPL

      NY/SIGAPL
      PO Box 138
      New York, New York   10815-0002

      Monthly meetings (ex July/August), newsletter "BIG APL",
      "APL as a Tool of Thought" miniconferences (the eighth
      in November).  Dues $35, $25 for ACM and for ACM SIGAPL
      members, $10 for students.

      [ e-mail may be sent to me ]

[2]   SWAPL, the SouthWest APL Users' Group
		
      c/o Stuart Yarus
          PO Box 210367	
 	  Bedford TX   76095

      Newsletter "SWAPL Newsletter", monthly meetings, annual (?)
      miniconference.  Dues $12.

Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: qmdbms@gsusgi2.gsu.edu (Brian Schott)
Subject: Re: learn J using v.3.4 or v.5.1?
Organization: Georgia State University
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 02:01:46 GMT

gaylord@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Richard J. Gaylord) writes:

>i want to understand j better and i have downloaded both v.3.4 and 5.1
>for the Mac. the 3.4 has a terrific on-line help system which could
>greatly facilitate my studying the system and v.5.1 does not offer
>anything like it.
Yes, it is too bad that the on-line help had to be dropped in order
to allow the developers to make j available on more platforms.  I
wish someone could install the on-line help in new releases. Are
there any programmers out there who would be willing to do the
installation?

>i know there must be written material for v.5.1 (what and where?) but is
>it going to be as useful as the online help (which reallyis nice)?

ISI's dictionary has expanded and is terse but good. As is Iverson's
Programming in J.  These are very useful, but not on-line.  

>my question is: if i use 3.4 to study 'j' will i be learning 'the wrong
>stuff'? how much has the language changed from 3.4 to 5.1?

I am not an expert in j, but my experience has been that there have been
so few dramatic changes to j, 3.4 would be better for you.
 
-- 
Brian Schott/Decision Sciences Dept.             qmdbms@gsusgi2.gsu.edu
College of Business Administration                         404-651-4070
Georgia State University                  interests: approx. reasoning,
Atlanta, Georgia USA 30303-3083     (B=)       decision support systems
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: qmdbms@gsusgi2.gsu.edu (Brian Schott)
Subject: J explicit def'n result?
Organization: Georgia State University
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 03:45:08 GMT

Below is some cooked up j code.  I frequently require some rather
long calculations such as a simulation and put the results in an
array.  After the simulation I compute some statistical summary
of the results which have been put into an array.  But I cannot
seem to make the statistical calculations the last line of the
explicit function which has already done the simulation.  

So I cooked up the simple functions(?) s and t below to see
why I get errors on the final summary.  By errors I mean that I
usually get domain error or syntax error or the like.  Well I
am not getting such errors in the cooked up example, but I do
not understand what is going on and suspect that the misunder--
standing is related to the real errors I get on my real jobs.
--------------------------

s =. 0 0 $''
s =. s, 'y. - 2'      NB. to summarize result of t
t =. 0 0 $''
t =. t, 'z=: i. 5'    NB. in reality a long calculation
t =. t, 'S z'         NB. now do the summarization
S =. s : ''
   t
z=: i. 5
S z     
   S
+---+-++
|z-2|:||
+---+-++
    ". t
 0  1 2 3 4
_2 _1 0 1 2
-----------------------------   
Where does the 0 1 2 3 4 come from?

(B=)
-- 
Brian Schott/Decision Sciences Dept.             qmdbms@gsusgi2.gsu.edu
College of Business Administration                         404-651-4070
Georgia State University                  interests: approx. reasoning,
Atlanta, Georgia USA 30303-3083     (B=)       decision support systems
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: agrtqb%irmfao01.bitnet@utcs.utoronto.ca
Subject:      XXencode/decode
X-Acknowledge-To: <AGRTQB@IRMFAO01>
Organization: Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 12:25:17 GMT


Note on the XXencode/decode process.

When I did send the directory of APLers I did ZIP the ASCII file and
then XXencoded it.

Many people told me that they did not know about the xxencoding system so
I thought I should post a brief explanation.

The traditional process for transfer of non ASCII files is the
UUENCODE/UUDECODE system. I will not describe the system but the
important point here is that the coding is done using the 64 characters
ASCII 32 to 95.

As some of the characters (mainly the square brackets, caret and stile)
do no always pass properly (in general when the file passes through an
... machine :-) ) a new system has been proposed, the XXENCODE/DECODE.

At present the lower case characters pass without problem so the new
encoding uses:

+-0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

The rest of the process (breaking the bytes, grouping, ...) is the same
as for uuencode/decode. So a global replace (on the coded part of the
XXencoded file) of the above codes by the ASCII 32 to 95 should give a
UUencoded file. This global replace is of course very simple to program
in APL as well as the whole XXencoding/decoding process.

A good introduction can be found in:

A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO NETWORKING AND FILE TRANSMISSION
by Erich Neuwirth

(file TRANSGID.TXT in <MSDOS.STARTER> directory available by anonymous
ftp from SIMTEL20 or TRICKLE).

Yours,

Alain Delmotte     Agrometeorology / FAO         or   Avenue du Marathon, 6
                   Via delle Terme di Caracalla       B1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
                   I00100 Rome ITALY                  BELGIUM
                   tel.: Italy-6-5797 5504            Belgium-10-45 11 92

PS. The directory is available for anonymous ftp as:

ADDRESS.ZOO      directory languages/apl     at watserv1.uwaterloo.ca
or
ADDRESS.Z        directory pub/apl/apl-email at astrpi.difi.unipi.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: sam@csi.jpl.nasa.gov (Sam Sirlin)
Subject: Re: Beginner J questions: local variables
Originator: sam@kalessin
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 18:42:35 GMT


In article <1992Sep10.164511.11493@coe.montana.edu>, oususalg@cs.montana.edu (Glassy) writes:
|> Here's a verb to find the arithmetic mean of a rank-1 vector:
|> bar =. '(+/ y.) % (# y.)' : ''
|> 
|> ok.  Now I'd like to write a verb to calculate the variance 
|> of a vector.  The following does the trick:
|> 
|> var =. 'bar *: y. - bar y.' : ''
|> 
|> what i'd like to do, is encapsulate bar y. in a noun local
|> to the var verb.  var is correct and straightforward, but it
|> irks me that it recalculates bar y. repeatedly when it doesn't have
|> to.  

You mean that it has to compile bar twice? Or just call bar twice?

|> can local variables be embedded in verb definitions?  
|> if so, how?

If I understand what you want, you can do it with tacit definition and
fix. Check out these (and other variants I'm sure you can come up
with).

   var1 =. 'bar *: y. - bar y.' : 11 f.

   bart =. '(+/ y.) % (# y.)' : 11
   vart =. 'bart *: y. - bart y.' : 11 f.

-- 
Sam Sirlin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory         sam@kalessin.jpl.nasa.gov

Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
From: dave@visual1.jhuapl.edu (Dave Weintraub)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Subject: Re: apl*plus to IBM/apl2 conversion problem
Date: 15 Sep 92 21:09:18 GMT
Reply-To: dave@visual1.jhuapl.edu (Dave Weintraub)
Organization: Johns Hopkins University

QuadTCNL is the STSC TerminalControlNewLine character.
In APL2 terms, it is QuadTC[ QuadIO + 1 ].

There is no (non-highly-pervasive)
way to have a user-defined Quad variable in APL2.

Instead of editing each of the functions ("programs") in the workspace,
you could just edit the Transfer Form File, or write a very simple
APL2 function to change all of the occurences in all of the
functions in the workspace.

My suggestion would be (if you do not want to re-code this stuff
with a "PROMPT" utility, so that all of the APL-implementation-dependent
stuff is centralized) that you define a variable DeltaTCNL,
and then you can change each QuadTCNL to DeltaTCNL.

Hope this helps... 

---- 
dave

This is being posted on INTERNET by
     dave@visual1.jhuapl.edu
I can also be reached as
     dave@aplvm.bitnet       dave@aplvm.jhuapl.edu
Dave Weintraub   The Applied Physics Laboratory  The Johns Hopkins University
   Johns Hopkins Road 3-145    Laurel MD 20723-6099   USA   (301)-953-5839
WB3KWr
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl