Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!ljdickey
From: ljdickey@watmath.waterloo.edu (L. J. Dickey)
Subject: Re: J for the Atari ST
Message-ID: <1991Dec3.025438.12401@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Organization: University of Waterloo
References: <91336.135558HAC041@DJUKFA11.BITNET>
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1991 02:54:38 GMT
Lines: 57

In article <91336.135558HAC041@DJUKFA11.BITNET> HAC041@DJUKFA11.BITNET (Konrad Hinsen) writes:
>Recently I decided to look more seriously at J. Since many people around
>here seem to be using it, maybe someone could answer some questions:
>
>1) I got my copy of J from I-APL Ltd. in England; what I received
>   is a disk with J version 2.9 and a small booklet called
>   'Tangible math and the ISI dictionary of J', which is hardly
>   sufficient to learn the language even for APL users. There has
>   been some discussion here about a book called 'Programming
>   in J'. Does it contain more information? Where is it available
>   and at what cost?

There are spelling changes between versions 2.9 and 3.2, so your 
edition of Tangible Math will have to have some transliteration.
You should write to ISI at the address given in their README
file for more information about their other publications, or
maybe someone from ISI will write to you directly.
Some of us have learned J (more or less) from documentation
originally available, namely the file "status.doc" and the
tutorials.  There are over 40 panels with many examples of J
included with every J release on "watserv1.waterloo.edu".
There is also a short paper called "What_is.j" available from
the same server.

>2) From the Waterloo file server I just downloaded a more recent
>   version (3.2) for my Atari ST and also J and LinkJ for a Sun3
>   to which I have access. Since the ST version is rather unpleasant
>   to use (it has no command line editor of any kind), it seems
>   that LinkJ is exactly what I need to make up something more
>   convenient.

Before you do too much with this, look into GULAM, one of the
very good command line interpreter available by anonymous
ftp from "atari.archive.umich.edu".  You might also look into
MINT, a much more substantial piece of work.  Both give 
command sets that are familiar to un*x users.

>                  However, the Waterloo server does not have LinkJ
>   for the ST, although its existence is mentioned in the LinkJ
>   description that came with the Sun package.

It is coming.

>   Does anyone know a place to obtain LinkJ for the ST?
>
>3) Since my machine is an Atari TT rather than an ST, I wonder if
>   a J version with coprocessor support is available. Since J seems
>   to be written using GNU-C, this shouldn't be much of an effort.

I suspect that if someone were to make a TT available to ISI, there
would be a J version with TT options.

-- 
Leroy J. (Lee) Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, U of Waterloo, Canada  N2L 3G1
Internet:      ljdickey@watmath.UWaterloo.ca
UUCP:          ljdickey@watmath.UUCP             ...!uunet!watmath!ljdickey
Obsolescent?:  ljdickey@watmath.waterloo.edu     BITNET/EARN: ljdickey@watdcs
