Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Mers Kutt (left)
and Gordon
Ramer (right) in
1973. (Source:
York Un iversit y
Computer
Museum, photog-
rapher unknown.)
post-
CCI
, venture into low-cost computer systems. Reassured
by Noyce that Intel's first 8-bit microprocessor - the 8008 -
would soon see the light, Kutt was left with only one unresolved
problem - software. Not just any software, but a suite of com-
puter programs that would make his
PC
as easy to use as a
desktop calculator. And that is why he needed Ramer and his
intimate knowledge of the programming language called
APL
.
Ramer's long-lasting affection for the
APL
language had begun
with his 1968 trip to Queen's University to attend a lecture
given by
APL
's inventor, Kenneth Iverson. Since joining
IBM
's
Research Division in Yorktown Heights, New York, Iverson
had acquired a unique status among the software engineering
crowd at
IBM
, as well as outside the company, for his novel
views on formal languages in relation to computing. But it was
not until 1968 that
IBM
made the
APL
software (in the form
of the
APL
\360 interpreter of Iverson's
APL
language) publicly
available, cost-free but without any formal support. The
APL
lecture at Queen's was therefore a unique opportunity to learn
about the language from the inventor himself.
