4,493
edits
I.P. Sharp Associates: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
→External links
(Created page with "'''I.P. Sharp Associates''' ('''IPSA''') was the vendor of SHARP APL and a major contributor to the APL community and the flat array model in the 1970s and 1980s. Like...") |
|||
| (6 intermediate revisions by 3 users not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
'''I.P. Sharp Associates''' ('''IPSA''') was the vendor of [[SHARP APL]] and a major contributor to the APL community and the [[flat array model]] in the 1970s and 1980s. Like its U.S. counterpart [[STSC]], the Canadian IPSA served as a center of APL research, hiring notable interpreter designers and implementers from [[IBM]] and starting the careers of many other notable implementors. It also sponsored the [[IPSA conferences]]. | '''I.P. Sharp Associates''' ('''IPSA''') was the vendor of [[SHARP APL]] and a major contributor to the APL community and the [[flat array model]] in the 1970s and 1980s. Like its U.S. counterpart [[STSC]], the Canadian IPSA served as a center of APL research, hiring notable interpreter designers and implementers from [[IBM]] and starting the careers of many other notable implementors. It also sponsored the [[IPSA conferences]]. | ||
IPSA was founded in 1964 by an eight-person team including president Ian Sharp and [[Roger Moore]]. Initially a contractor for [[IBM]] System/360 programming, the company quickly became involved with APL, with Moore helping to implement [[APL\360]] beginning in 1966. IPSA | IPSA was founded in 1964 by an eight-person team including president [[Ian Sharp]] and [[Roger Moore]]. Initially a contractor for [[IBM]] System/360 programming, the company quickly became involved with APL, with Moore helping to implement [[APL\360]] beginning in 1966. In the next few years, IPSA worked with [[STSC]] to improve [[APL\360]]. The resulting interpreter, called [[APL*PLUS]], was offered by both companies as part of a [[time-sharing]] service: IPSA offered this service in Canada while STSC offered it in the United States. | ||
Around 1976 IPSA renamed their implementation [[SHARP APL]], and the language began to diverge from STSC's, which retained the name APL*PLUS. The divide widened in 1981, when [[SHARP APL]] introduced [[box]]es to handle nested data within the [[flat array model]], while STSC released [[NARS]], an experimental APL implementation whose [[nested array model]] would be used in later versions of APL*PLUS. During this period IPSA also began to sell SHARP APL as a stand-alone software product (beginning around 1979), in anticipation of the decline of time-sharing systems in favor of on-premise datacenters. It offered several [[IPSA conferences|conferences]], or user meetings, beginning in 1978. | |||
In 1984, IPSA released [[SHARP APL/PC]], a [[wikipedia:personal computer|personal computer]] version of SHARP APL, which now competed with [[IBM]]'s [[APL2]] in addition to APL*PLUS. Soon it would also release [[SAX]], or Sharp APL for Unix. By this time the rapid reduction in time-sharing revenue had caused the company's profitability to decline; it was purchased by [[wikipedia:Reuters Group|Reuters Group]] in 1987 and president [[Ian Sharp]] retired in 1989. The company was finally closed in 2005. | |||
== Employees == | == Employees == | ||
IPSA's roster of APL designers and implementors included cofounder [[Roger Moore]], former [[IBM]] employees [[Ken Iverson]] and [[Dick Lathwell]], and new implementors [[Roger Hui]], [[Eric Iverson]], [[Arthur Whitney]], and [[Bob Bernecky]]. After it was acquired in 1987, many IPSA employees went on to create other commercial efforts: Hui joined both Iversons to develop [[J]] as part of [[Jsoftware]], Whitney designed [[A+]] and later founded [[wikipedia:Kx Systems|Kx Systems]] and then Shakti to sell [[K]], and Bernecky created the [[APEX]] APL compiler. Two other employees, [[Morten Kromberg]] and [[Gitte Christensen]], founded the APL-based company Insight Systems, and later took over management of [[Dyalog Ltd.]] | IPSA's roster of APL designers and implementors included cofounder [[Roger Moore]], former [[IBM]] employees [[Ken Iverson]] and [[Dick Lathwell]], and new implementors [[Roger Hui]], [[Eric Iverson]], [[Arthur Whitney]], and [[Bob Bernecky]]. After it was acquired in 1987 by Reuters, many IPSA employees went on to create other commercial efforts: Hui joined both Iversons to develop [[J]] as part of [[Jsoftware]], Whitney designed [[A+]] and later founded [[wikipedia:Kx Systems|Kx Systems]] and then Shakti to sell [[K]], and Bernecky created the [[APEX]] APL compiler. Two other employees, [[Morten Kromberg]] and [[Gitte Christensen]], founded the APL-based company Insight Systems, and later took over management of [[Dyalog Ltd.]] | ||
== Soliton Incorporated == | |||
In 1993 the company Soliton Incorporated was formed by a group of former I.P. Sharp employees and bought IPSA's APL division from Reuters. Soliton offered the [[SAX]] programming language until about 2017. | |||
{{APL development}} | == External links == | ||
* [[wikipedia:I. P. Sharp Associates|I. P. Sharp Associates]] | |||
* [[wikipedia:Soliton Incorporated|Soliton Incorporated]] | |||
* [https://www.snakeisland.com/ipsanewsletters.htm IPSA newsletter collection] | |||
{{APL development}}[[Category:Vendors]] | |||