APL, J,
			and other APL Software
			    at Waterloo

Several versions of APL and J are now available on the file server
known variously as

	watserv1.uwaterloo.ca         
	watserv1.waterloo.edu         
	129.97.129.140 

at the University of Waterloo.   In the directories "languages/apl",
"languages/j" users of WWW and anonymous ftp will find a lot of good
stuff.

An index showing all APL files is available as "languages/apl/index".
An index showing all J files is available as "languages/j/index".

The source for J, Version 6.2, and corresponding executables for
dec5500, mips, next, sgi, sun3, sun4, vax, PC, Mac, and Atari machines
are available.  Some earlier versions of J are available for ATT 3b1,
Amiga, PC OS/2, Archimedes, HP, and IBM RS6000.

Several flavors of APL are available, including Sharp APL, I-APL,
RATAPL, and TryAPL2, as well as the source for APL\11.

Several different APL fonts may be obtained:

	(1) APL2741, a postscript line font
	(2) An X-Windows font 
	(3) Two different TeX fonts.

There are some APL workspaces, such as the Toronto Toolkit, a complex
numbers workspace, an accounting package, and one on workspace
interchange that has the feature that the exchange files are human
readable.

There are some back articles from the news group "comp.lang.apl", (not
the most recent ones) and a file called FAQ which answers Frequently
Asked Questions about APL and newsgroup related subjects.

Currently, this service is being provided on an experimental basis, and
there are no promises that it will continue on a long term basis, nor
is there any warantee of serviceability or completeness of the software
distributed from watserv1.

The rest of this announcement is of interest to readers who are
not on internet.

It is hoped that eventually there will be a mail server on watserv1
for this same range of software to those who have e-mail access but
no ftp access, but so far this has not happened.

In the meantime, users who do not have ftp but who do have e-mail may 
find one of the services

		BITFTP@PUCC.BITNET
		ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com

to be useful.  The first is of use only to users who have access
to BITNET, and the second will be of use to users who have e-mail
but no access to BITNET, such as unix users on Usenet or users on
of certain commercial services.

To get started with  BITFTP@PUCC.BITNET, send a one word message 
"help" to BITFTP@PUCC.BITNET.  Or, simply follow this example:
of this mail message (with no leading blanks)

	To: BITFTP@PUCC.BITNET

	FTP watserv1.uwaterloo.ca UUENCODE
	USER anonymous 
	CD languages/apl
	BINARY
	GET index
	QUIT

which was successful in acquiring the index.  Similar messages could
result in receiving the various pieces of software.

Once you have the index, you may see the name of some other file you
want.  For such a file, determine the directory path (``dp'') and
the file name (``fn'').  One example you will have already done:
the file "languages/apl/index" splits up as:

		dp		languages/apl		
		fn		index			

As another example, if the file

		languages/apl/j/help/what_is.j

is of interest to you, you would use this combination of directory
path and the file name:

		dp	languages/apl
		fn	what_is_j

Prepare a little file that will become your mail message to pucc:
(As before, no lines of the file have no leading blanks.)

		To: bitftp@pucc.bitnet

		FTP watserv1.uwaterloo.ca UUENCODE
		USER anonymous 
		CD dp
		BINARY
		GET fn
		QUIT

Of course, in the above, you replace "dp" by the appropriate directory
path, and you replace "fn" by the file name.  Use your local e-mail to
send the file off.  If all goes as intended, when PUCC gets your mail
message, it does the "ftp" session for you, using the commands you have
supplied.  It wraps the file up in a "uuencode" package, and mails it
to you.  When you get the file, you may have to combine several files
together, remove superfluous blank and mail header lines, and uudecode
the file.

We understand that at this time, PUCC provides this service
only to users at BITNET sites.

However, e-mail users at other sites may be helped by a service
provided by  ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com .  To get started send a one word
message with just the word "help" in the body of the message.  Use no
leading blanks, and use no quotation marks.  You should get back
instructions that will get you started.  The body of your first
message might be something like this:

	connect watserv1.uwaterloo.ca
	chdir languages/apl
	get index
	quit

The service offered by ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com is scheduled to give
priority to first-class mail, so you may find yourself waiting
a day or so for what you want.


Leroy J. (Lee) Dickey
1995-06-04

-- 
Leroy J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, U of Waterloo, Canada  N2L 3G1
Internet:      ljdickey@UWaterloo.CA
UUCP:          ljdickey@watmath.UUCP