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MCM/70 Reproduction

Very cool! I've always been curious: is the MCM/70's APL complete enough to do matrix math, or does it only work with scalars or perhaps vectors?

I seem to recall a lesser-known home micro that had a very limited (cartridge-based?) APL with no support for multidimensional matrices, but I can't find what it is now. (Update: it's the Umtech VideoBrain, with "APL/S".) If the MCM/APL can manage multidimensional arrays and even do matrix inversion/least squares with ⌹, then kudos to them for getting it done with an 8008 with 8K of RAM! Although I'm wondering how you would then view the inputs or the result on that single-line display.
 
Just to be clear my reproduction will be running in emulation. I will be using the emulator developed by the York University Computer Museum which can be found HERE. They would definitely be able to answer any questions about the tapes or actual operation of the MCM/70. The tapes pictured above are for show only I'm afraid.
 
Given the lack of useful information on that web page it is unfortunate they are so close-minded about their artifact holdings.
People have been asking us for a long time to make our holdings freely available.
I was hoping not to have to scan the documentation to put online at bitsavers.

I guess they gave a talk about the MCM/70 at VCF East in the past, but I've not been able to find anything on-line about it
 
Given the lack of useful information on that web page it is unfortunate they are so close-minded about their artifact holdings.
People have been asking us for a long time to make our holdings freely available.
I was hoping not to have to scan the documentation to put online at bitsavers.

I guess they gave a talk about the MCM/70 at VCF East in the past, but I've not been able to find anything on-line about it
Actually there is a lot of information there. For instance the MCM Exhibit link from that has a lot of great historical information about the MCM/70. The curator of the museum Zbigniew Stachniak wrote the book Inventing the PC: the MCM/70 Story (McGill-Queen's University Press) which is very good.

Also from that page:

Currently, the emulator is available for Linux platform only and is supported with these resources:

MCM70E Guide
MCM70 Users Guide
MCM/70 Tape Library

And of course you can request the emulator from them which has a wealth of information available with a little work.

Mike
 
Referring to that information, it looks like the MCM/APL does support multidimensional matrices and inner/outer product, but it can't do ⌹. Still impressive for such a small system!
 
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