Scientific Time Sharing Corporation

Scientific Time Sharing Corporation (STSC) was a pioneering timesharing and consulting service company which offered APL from its datacenter in Bethesda, MD to users in the United States and Europe.

History

Scientific Time Sharing Corporation (STSC) was formed in 1969 in Bethesda, Maryland by Dan Dyer, Burton C. Gray, and some of the people who originally implemented the programming language APL, notably Philip S. Abrams, Lawrence M. Breed, and Allen Rose. In 1970, STSC released ''APL*Plus'', a version of the ''APL\360'' language with many practical extensions oriented toward fostering business use of APL. Together with I. P. Sharp Associates, STSC made many enhancements to the APL language, including:
* []FMT formatting
* []VR and []FX, APL program Reflection (computer programming), reflection features
* a file system to store APL variables outside of the APL environment

STSC continued to make enhancements to the interpreter, notably improving the performance of many of the primitive functions.

In 1985, Dan Dyer of STSC and Ian Sharp of I. P. Sharp Associates jointly received the ''Kenneth E. Iverson Award for Outstanding Contribution to APL''.

In the early 1980s, the timesharing market began collapsing, mostly due to the appearance in the marketplace of relatively lower cost IBM mainframe computers, such as the IBM 4300. STSC quickly changed its focus to supply APL services for in-house and the rapidly developing personal computer (PC) market.

In 1982, STSC released ''APL*Plus/PC'', which was a very successful APL interpreter for the IBM personal computer. In the mid 1980s, STSC developed the ''APL*Plus/Unix'' interpreter, a full 32-bit interpreter which was the basis of further APL development, notably ''APL*Plus/386'', which was later available for Intel 386 class machines and higher. Arguably, the ''APL*Plus/386'' interpreter fostered the exodus of APL applications from mainframe to PC environments, as the hardware and software were finally correctly matched to facilitate a straightforward migration of medium- to large-sized applications away from mainframes.

In the mid 1980s, STSC released an APL compiler for its APL*Plus add-on for the IBM VSAPL program product. Along with language features designed to profile code execution, this compiler implementation was oriented toward replacing resource-consuming functions in place with compiled ones, leading to overall performance improvements.

By the mid 1990s, the ''APL*Plus/386'' system had become one of the leading APL interpreters in the market, however it did not run under the then-new Microsoft Windows 3.1. Although there were some attempts at Windows interoperability, development on the ''APL*Plus/Win'' product began shortly before the APL products were sold to ''LEX2000''. This latest Windows product is the basis for the current ''APLNow'' (formerly ''APL2000'') interpreter product line.

Timeline

* 1969 – Scientific Time Sharing Corporation formed
* 1971 – APL Mailbox, also called 666 BOX, an early email system by Larry Breed and Francis Bates
* 1976 – STSC Mailbox used to coordinate the Jimmy Carter presidential campaign
* 1979 – the firm name was changed to ''STSC, Inc.''
* 1982 – APL*Plus/PC launched, one of the first versions of APL on the personal computer
* 1982 – acquired by Continental Telecom, Inc.
* 1990 – acquired Rover Technology Co.
* 1992 – name changed to Manugistics Group, Inc.
* 1993 – initial public offering
* 1995 – the APL product line was sold to ''LEX2000, Inc.''
* 1999 – Cognos Corporation acquired LEX2000

Manugistics continued to own all supply chain software.

See also

* Kenneth Iverson

References

External links

APL programming language - Chronology
* Promotional video for Scientific Time Sharing Corporation, which features President Jimmy Carter's press secretary Jody Powell explaining how the company's ''APL Mailbox'' enabled the 1976 Carter presidential campaign to easily move information around the country to coordinate the campaign. Plus many employees and corporate customers explaining how STSC's APL helped them solve business problems.

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Defunct companies based in Maryland
APL programming language family
Time-sharing companies