Talk show style interview with the original developers of APL. A brief history of “The Origins of APL” - from John R. Clarke At the 5th APL conference held in Toronto Canada in 1973 it was agreed that the 6th conference would be held in Anaheim California with the Coast Community College District (CCCD) as the host institution. The CCCD, at the time, consisted of two colleges Orange Coast College (OCC) and the Golden West College (GWC) and a Public Broadcast Television station KOCE. Roughly 45,000 students were enrolled in the two schools. OCC was the first two year college to teach computers starting in 1959. Dr. Iverson had informed us at Toronto that he would not serve as the banquet speaker. This presented the organizing group with a major problem. In fall of 1973, John R. Clarke was sent to attend a conference at the Educational Testing Service near Princeton University. While there, he sneaked off and went to the IBM Scientific Center in Philadelphia to meet with Iverson and Falkoff. He then pitched the idea of cutting a tape and using it at the banquet. Iverson was not impressed, but when Falkoff ask why it should be done, John replied that he would bet 90% of the people using FORTRAN did not know who John Baccus was and how FORTRAN was developed. Falkoff went to see Iverson, and it was agreed. The show would be cut. Iverson had given John a copy of the description of system/360, and the TV station had the opportunity to set up the props for the show. The tape was shot in real time the morning before the banquet in the evening. There was no cutting or practice sessions. There was a meeting the previous evening in which about the only thing that was agreed on was the word “basic” should not be used, and “fundamental” should be used instead. David Clements the host, was a systems analysis/programmer who worked for the district data processing. He had had some TV experience prior to joining CCCD. He had almost no APL experience.