APL tutorials

by Zdenek V Jizba


On Wednesday, 3 Apr 1996, Zdenek V Jizba (jizba@gte.net) announced the beginning of work on a series tutorials for APL2 running under OS2.

He wrote:

One of my ongoing projects over the past few years has been the writing of interactive tutorials on APL. Most recently I have been upgrading the tutorials on APL2 (PC version) to the APL2OS2 version. This has turned out to be a bigger task than expected. OS2 and APL2OS2 are so intertwined that to learn how to use effectively APL2 requires familiarity with OS/2. Furthermore, the auxiliary processors of APL2OS2 have been changed so much that my previous tutorial workspaces have to be practically re-written. As of now there are seven APL2OS2 tutorial workspaces more or less in a state of completion (though I find it necessary on occasion to update them on the basis of my ever increasing knowledge of OS2).

Latest release

In the October of 1997, Denny polished off a new series of 22 Tutorials, complete with a READ.ME file, an Index workspace, and a Utility workspace. You may download all 25 of these, the READ.ME file and 24 workspaces, all in one package.

Older material

The original package planned for eight tutorials for this series, but it has since grown. Whatever else appears in the future here in the APL Archives the APL Software Library as they are received, and will be announced in "comp.lang.apl".

Available Tutorials

The following tutorial workspaces dealing with APL2OS2 are now available:
READ.ME
A short introduction to help people moving to OS/2 from some other operating systems.
TEACH41
Introduction to APL2OS2; installation, defining libraries, Session Manager, Session Log, Session Editor; pull down menus, modifying the keyboard, fonts, colors, F-keys.
TEACH42
Introduction to shared variables; Auxiliary Processors; Shared Variable Commands; "SVOFFER", AP100 (OS/2), AP101 (Stack processor)
TEACH43
File processors, AP210, AP211.
TEACH44
Full screen Auxiliary Processor (AP124)
TEACH45
Introduction to the universal graphics Auxiliary Processor (AP207); Parameters, "pels", keywords, DRAW and MOVE.
TEACH46
(AP207 continued); aspect ratio; "window" and "viewport"
TEACH47
TEACH48
GRAPHIC FONTS
TEACH49

Future tutorials

These tutorials are in the works and planned for future release.
TEACH50
TEACH51
Using color in foreground and in background. Commands COLOR, COLMAP, CLEAR. (still under development)
WARNING!
While developping workspace TEACH52 the command SETPEL ceased to operate. Possibly because of this, during the final editing of workspace TEACH51 some anomalous effects were observed. All efforts to correct the problem have so far failed. Regretfully I am suspending indefinitely all further work on these tutorials.
TEACH52 Not yet available
The POINT command. Rubber band interaction with the graphic screen. SETPEL and SCISSOR.(This workspace is still under development.)

For further information, contact Denny at jizba@kaiwan.com. If for some reason, you are unable to download and unzip these files, he can send e-mail in MIME format containing ".ATF" files.