Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!wupost!udel!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!phage!wchang
From: wchang@phage.cshl.org (William Chang in Marr Lab)
Subject: Re: Beginner's guide to Low-Cost "Real-Work" APLs
Message-ID: <BwuHJn.HzK@phage.cshl.org>
Organization: Cold Spring Harbor Lab, Long Is New York
References: <Bwu901.7r6@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 18:47:47 GMT
Lines: 26

In article <Bwu901.7r6@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>:

>Commercially Motivated                                    Market
>Vendor Support                      Kaizen Strategy?*     Responsive?
>
>APL*PLUS      -- Hot-line + bbs     Yes, to a fault       Highly so

> *   Kaizen is the Japanese term for a reliable corporate commitment to
>     unceasing, market-driven, improvement and innovation.

Perhaps so, but STSC orphaned their Macintosh APL, which was pretty 
nice but turned out incompatible with the Mac II.  Supposedly they were 
very close to making an upgrade available, but didn't.  It may have been
wise to focus their effort on the PC, but in this case they were not at
all committed to some of their customers.  I suspect that, with STSC's 
marketing power, a lot of people could have been introduced to APL on the 
Mac.

Meanwhile, MicroAPL (sold by Spencer Org.) has continued to improve their
APL.68000 products for the Mac, Amiga, and Atari.  Version I is only $150, 
and has a reputation for reliability and speed (written in assembler when 
the 68000 chip came out).  Version II is $1000 ($650 educational) and is 
supposed to be very close to APL2.  They don't seem to do much marketing! 
I have ordered it, and will comment after I tried it on a Powerbook Mac.

-- Bill Chang (wchang@cshl.org)            Cold Spring Harbor Lab., NY
