UK-based company Dyalog have released a version of their APL software for the #RaspberryPi. APL was apparently the language used to do the computer graphics for the original TRON in 1982. Here’s some more info from their press-release:

Dyalog Limited have just released a Raspbian port of Dyalog APL for the Raspberry Pi. Dyalog APL for the Pi is a complete 32-bit Linux interpreter, with the same APL language features as Dyalog’s well-established Windows, AIX and Linux implementations.

APL is an expressive, interactive language that is ideally suited to exploratory programming. It’s been widely used to solve STEM* problems, and its concise, mathematically-oriented notation makes it great for education and exposition.

APL has a long history of success as an effective and exciting language for introducing mathematical concepts to students of all ages. We see this popular new platform as a great way for a whole new community of users to find inspiration from APL in a way that’s fully aligned with the goals of the Raspberry Pi foundation.

APL is highly effective at solving problems that involve performing complex calculations on lists or arrays of data. Its bit-manipulation capabilities make it a great tool for Embedded, Robotics and Computer Vision applications. Dyalog have been blogging about their embedded experiments at http://cto.dyalog.com/

If you want to get a flavour of the language, you can experiment on-line at http://tryapl.org. When you want to explore it further and run it on your Pi you will find installation instructions at http://packages.dyalog.com

* STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Read more information about the release here. There’s plenty of information about APL on their website.