At the Beginning, There Were Two - Inventing the PC - page 11

guage required 32K just to provide a user with a space to write
and execute programs, not to mention the memory required to
store the APL \360 interpreter itself or for the host computer to
perform other computational tasks. The 32K of memory were
twice as much as the Intel 8008 could directly support, and
much more than a typical mini of the 1960s was equipped with
(the immensely popular PDP -8 minicomputer manufactured by
Digital Equipment Corporation was shipped with just 4,096
twelve-bit words of memory in its basic configuration).
Kutt, of course, was aware of the insufficient memory prob-
lem. A simple calculation left no doubt that, without creative
hardware and software solutions, the task of creating an APL
computer to run on the Intel 8008 chip was simply impossible.
For a start, an APL computer would require approximately 16K
of memory to store APL . An additional 20K were required to
provide the user with a workspace - a section of computer mem-
ory where all the user's APL work would be done. And, finally,
another 8K or so were needed so the computer's operating sys-
tem could take care of display, external storage of data and pro-
grams, and other functions. The total of 44K was almost three
times what the 8008 processor could support directly. This is
why Kutt wanted to meet Ramer. Ramer was not only one of
the first software engineers in Canada to successfully develop
and implement a dialect of APL , but his version of the language,
named York APL , was memory efficient and sported a number
of unique features.
In 1968, the York University Computer Centre, where Ramer
was employed as assistant director, operated an IBM System
360 model 40 mainframe computer. The only APL software
that could be installed on it was the APL \360 interpreter just
made publicly available by IBM . In spite of a growing enthusi-
asm for APL in its computer centre, York University could not
afford to install APL \360. The software would consume all the
computational resources that their model of the 360 mainframe