APLASCII Transliteration Programs

                         November 4, 1994


   This directory contains versions of the APLASCII transliteration
workspace for various APL systems.  The programs in these workspaces
translate APL symbols to ASCII phrases, allowing APL statements and
functions to be included in e-mail messages and netnews postings.  For
example, the APL symbol commonly entered as Shift-I is translated to
"{iota}".  Programs are also provided to reverse the process,
translating the ASCII phrases back to APL symbols.

   The transliteration is designed to be easily understood even by
APLers who have never seen it before, and the process is completely
reversible--a transliteration and restoration cycle always recovers the
original input exactly.  The programs allow any number of alternative
keywords words to be specified for each APL symbol.  For example, the
symbol entered as Shift-R can be represented as either {rho}, {shape},
or {reshape}.  The programs automatically choose monadic or dyadic
keywords based on context.  Users can add their own keywords and specify
keyword preferences for individual symbols.

   Subroutines are provided to insert function listings into messages
and to extract listings from messages.  Additional subroutines are
provided for reading and writing messages to ASCII text files.

   Copyright to the software is held by the author, but permission is
granted to freely use, distribute, and modify the software provided you
leave the copyright notices intact.

   Files currently available include:

      aplplus1.zip   - APLASCII.AWS for the APL*PLUS /PC system
      aplplus2.zip   - APLASCII.WS for the APL*PLUS II /386 system
      aplplus3.zip   - APLASCII.W3 for the APL*PLUS III /Windows system
      apl2.zip       - APLASCII.ATF for APL2; read with )IN
      mac68k.hqx     - workspace for APL.68000 on a Macintosh

Except for the Mac version, you will need PKUNZIP (version 1.1 or later)
to decompress the workspaces; the Mac version requires DeHQX and Stuffit
Expander.  Once the workspace has been copied to your computer, read the
DESCRIBE variable for information on how to use the programs.  (Note
that the programs cannot be used without first running INSTALL.)

   The Dyalog version of the workspace is still incomplete.  If you want
to port the workspace to another APL system, please contact the author,
who will guide you through the somewhat complicated and none-too-well-
documented process.

   Please send bug reports, comments, and suggestions to the author,
Jim Weigang, at:

                   jimw@math.umass.edu
or
                   68 Plateau Circle
                   West Springfield, MA  01089
                   U.S.A.

=======================================================================

From: wchang@cb.cshl.org (William Chang)
Subject: Re: A2A
To: dholt@capaccess.org
Cc: wchang@acm.org

Dick, the workspace seems to work, although it took me a while to figure
out how to read DESCRIBE -- it simply scrolled off the top of the screen
and buffer.  Perhaps it should be given as a matrix instead of a vector,
so it can be quad-EDITed.  Some characters (nonstandard? unused?) don't
seem to have been filled in the translation tables.  The biggest problem
is a bug in the interpreter, that prevents | from being copied properly
to another application.  This is documented by Doug White in
MCACDESCRIBE, and the only workaround seems to be through saving to a
file and not the clipboard.  This bug is in the latest version, APL.68000
II 3.0 as well as in earlier versions that Doug White used.  

Best,

-- Bill