PCs for AP

This month I am pleased to present a guest column by Dan Higgins of Santa Barbara, CA on a topic that should not be at all controversial (!), that of choosing a microcomputer language for scientific computing. While the writeup below wasre ceived sometime agof rom Dan, the topic is an essentially timeless one and so Dan´s remarks remain relevant. I should mention that Dan has been kind enough to provide material for partial columns in the past, one a software description for a computerized EMP handbook called MACE (August 1985), and a review of MacEqn, a Macintosh desk accessory for typing equations (October 1986), and I want to express my appreciation for his most recent contribution.