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Annotation of 43BSD/contrib/apl/doc/man.1, revision 1.1.1.1

1.1       root        1: .NH 2
                      2: What are all of those funny characters?
                      3: .PP
                      4: Part of the power of
                      5: \*a
                      6: comes from the fact that it has so
                      7: many primitive operators,
                      8: usually referred to as ``functions''
                      9: in the \*a literature.
                     10: That is,
                     11: many common functions,
                     12: from addition and subtraction,
                     13: to trigonometric functions,
                     14: and to matrix operations,
                     15: can be specified with a couple of characters.
                     16: As a result,
                     17: the character set for
                     18: \*a
                     19: does look a little strange.
                     20: Basically,
                     21: there are two major types of primitive
                     22: functions.
                     23: The most common functions,
                     24: such as the arithmetic operators,
                     25: etc.,
                     26: are represented by a single character.
                     27: For example,
                     28: the symbol ``+'' represents addition.
                     29: Because there are only so many keys
                     30: on the keyboard,
                     31: the other operators in \*a,
                     32: for example, matrix inversion,
                     33: are called ``overstrike'' characters.
                     34: An overstrike character is treated
                     35: as one symbol by \*a,
                     36: but requires three keystrokes on the
                     37: terminal.
                     38: One common example is the ``comment''
                     39: symbol.
                     40: This symbol is composed of the
                     41: three characters:
                     42: C <backspace> J.
                     43: (The is also the same thing as
                     44: J <backspace> C.)
                     45: On an \*a terminal,
                     46: the equivalent characters are
                     47: ``intersection'' and ``jot''.
                     48: .PP
                     49: This brings up another point.
                     50: \*u \*a is capable of
                     51: operating with one of two character
                     52: sets.
                     53: By default,
                     54: the ASCII character set is used,
                     55: since most computer terminals implement
                     56: at least this set.
                     57: When this character set is in use,
                     58: lowercase letters are used to
                     59: form variable and function names.
                     60: Special symbols,
                     61: such as ``+'',
                     62: and the uppercase letters
                     63: are used to form the \*a operators.
                     64: To run \*a from an ASCII terminal,
                     65: the command is simply:
                     66: .sp
                     67: $ apl
                     68: .sp
                     69: .PP
                     70: \*a may also be instructed to use
                     71: the \*a character set.
                     72: This is useful only on an \*a
                     73: terminal.
                     74: ASCII is always used internally,
                     75: so work may be done interchangeably
                     76: on both \*a and ASCII terminals.
                     77: If you wish to use the \*a
                     78: character set rather than the ASCII
                     79: character set, use the command:
                     80: .sp
                     81: $ apl -m
                     82: .sp
                     83: A list of the character set for \*u
                     84: \*a appears in Appendix A.
                     85: .so purdue

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