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Appendix C: APL Blossom Time

Appendix

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<h2>APL Blossom Time</h2>

APL2 continues the rich tradition of the APL programming language, first defined and implemented by Kenneth Iverson and Adin Falkoff and their team which included Larry Breed and Dick Lathwell. APL and APL2 advocates have an esprit all their own as evidenced by the following song written by Michele Montalbano. This song encapsulates the early history of APL.

<div class="line-block">Dedicated to the pioneers of APL

with respect and affection

by

J.C.L. Guest

To the tune of “The Battle of New Orleans”

Reprinted with permission.</div>

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<div class="line-block">Back in the old days, in 1962,

A feller named Ken Iverson decided what to do.

He gathered all the papers he’d been writing for a spell

and he put them in a little book and called it APL.

Well!…

He got him a jot and he got him a ravel

and he revved his compression up as high as she could go

And he did some reduction and he did some expansion

And he sheltered all his numbers with a ceiling and a flo’.

Now Sussenguth and Falkoff, they thought it would be fine

To use the new notation to describe the product line.

They got with Dr. Iverson and went behind the scenes

And wrote a clear description of a batch of new machines.

Well!…

They wrote down dots and they wrote down squiggles

And they wrote down symbols that they didn’t even know.

And they wrote down questions when they didn’t know the answers

And they made the Systems Journal in nineteen sixty-fo’.

Now writing dots and squiggles is a mighty pleasant task

But it doesn’t answer questions that a lot of people ask.

Ken needed an interpreter for folks who couldn’t read

So he hiked to Californ-i-a to talk to Larry Breed.

Oh!…

He got Larry Breed and he got Phil Abrams ’

And they started coding FORTRAN just as fast as they could go

And they punched up cards and ran them through the reader

In Stanford, Palo Alto, on the seventy-ninety-oh.

Well, a FORTRAN batch interpreter’s a mighty awesome thing

But while it hums a pretty tune, it doesn’t really sing.

The thing that we all had to have to make our lives sublime

Was an interactive program that would let us share the time.

Oh!…

They got Roger Moore and they got Dick Lathwell,

And they got Gene McDonnell with his carets and his sticks,

And you should’ve heard the uproar in the Hudson River valley

When they saved the first <code>CLEANSPACE</code> in 1966.

Well, when Al Rose saw this he took a little ride

In a big station wagon with a typeball by his side.

He did a lot of teaching and he had a lot of fun

With an old, bent, beat-up 2741.

Oh!…

It typed out starts and it typed out circles

An it twisted and it wiggled just like a living thing.

Al fed it a tape when he couldn’t get a phone line

And it purred like a tiger with its trainer in the ring.

Now there’s much more to the story, but I just don’t have the time

(And I doubt you have the patience) for an even longer rhyme.

So I’m ending this first chapter of the tale I hope to tell

Of how Iverson’s notation blossomed into APL.

So!…

Keep writing nands when you’re not writing neithers,

And point with an arrow to the place you want to be,

But don’t forget to bless those early APL sources

Who preserved the little seedling that became an APL tree.</div>

Live performance at the APL81 Conference in San Francisco by L. Breed, J. Brown, J. Bunda, D. Dloughy, A. O’Hara, R. Skinner, and 900 attendees.

45-RPM recording by J. Brown, M. Wheatley, J. Bunda, and B. Duff.<a href="#fn1" id="fnref1" role="doc-noteref">[1]</a>

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<li id="fn1" role="doc-endnote">[Webmaster’s note:] Original recordings and more information available at <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040625131438/http://smartarrays.com/downloads/aplblossomtime/aplblossomtime.html" class="uri">https://web.archive.org/web/20040625131438/http://smartarrays.com/downloads/aplblossomtime/aplblossomtime.html</a>.<a href="#fnref1" class="footnote-back" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></li>

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