Awatmath.2151 net.lang.apl utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!watmath!rsjayasekera Fri Mar 26 18:21:23 1982 Re: First Message George Otto asked what canonical WS representations people use to allow us to exchange APL workspaces over this net or by tape. SIGAPL (the ACM special interest group on APL) has a "Workspace Interchange Convention" (WSIS, so abbreviated because "Convention" was originally "Standard") for this purpose. It defines a bit-stream representation of a workspace, which can then be communicated over any convenient medium. For instance, bits might be grouped into bytes and stored on 9-track tape, or grouped seven bits at a time into ASCII characters and transmitted over a network. The specification of WSIS was given in an issue of APL Quote Quad a year or two ago (actually, it was covered in more than one issue). It is a "layered" specification, like the ISO reference model for open systems interconnection. Rohan Jayasekera, University of Waterloo watmath!rsjayasekera ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.