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Our History

From a small group of APL consultants forming their own breakaway company in the UK in 1976, to the global enterprise that we are today, we have always striven to preserve our vision of advancing APL and promoting its use.



1976
Dyadic Systems Ltd Founded

Dyadic Systems Ltd is formed by Ted Hare (Managing Director), Phil Goacher (Financial Director) and David Crossley (Technical Director), with employees Geoff Streeter and John Stembridge (Pauline Brand and Pete Donnelly, among others, joined later).

Milestone: Company

September 1981
Dyalog (Europe) Ltd

A meeting between Dyadic Systems Ltd and Pamela Geisler of Zilog (UK) Ltd leads to David Crossley, Phil Goacher and Ted Hare registering Dyalog (Europe) Ltd as a company under Dyadic Systems Ltd – the name is conceived as a hybrid of Dyadic and Zilog. John Scholes is recruited to lead the development team, and work starts on Dyalog APL and Dyalog v1.0.

Milestone: Company

April 1983
Dyalog v1.0 Launched

Dyalog v1.0 is launched at APL83, the 1983 APL Conference in Washington. APL83 hosted the largest ever commercial exhibition of APL vendors, and Dyadic Systems Ltd found itself competing for attention with APL.68000, which was already available on dozens of 68000-based systems, and STSC's APL*PLUS for the new IBM PC.

Milestone: Product

October 1983
Lynwood Scientific Developments Acquires Dyadic Systems Ltd

Dyadic Systems Ltd is purchased by Lynwood Scientific Developments, a British manufacturer of intelligent computer terminals. Pete Donnelly is appointed Operations Manager to run Dyadic Systems Ltd as a subsidiary.

Milestone: Company

1985
Commercial Breakthrough

SimCorp choses Dyalog under UNIX as the platform for a Treasury Management system for the newly de-regulated British Building Societies. This system came to dominate the UK Building Society market and, as every Building Society had its own favoured hardware supplier, Dyalog was ported to an ever‑growing range of UNIX systems.

Milestone: Product

1986
The Hardware Business

To provide a complete package for a departmental APL system, Dyadic Systems Ltd starts to sell UNIX hardware.

Milestone: Company

1987
IBM Vendor Logo Product

IBM EMEA announces Dyalog APL as a "Vendor-Logo" product for the IBM 6150 (IBM RT in the USA). This is supported by an official IBM brochure, and Dyalog APL licences can be ordered from IBM and IBM re-sellers. IBM's own APL2 development team are not amused.

Milestone: Product

TBC
Taking Off...

British Airways issues an invitation to tender to supply four IBM RTs that will run applications written in Dyalog, and Dyadic Systems Ltd wins the contract.

Milestone: Company

June 1989
Lynwood Scientific Developments Acquired by Hunting plc

Lynwood Scientific Developments becomes part of the Hunting plc group of companies, and Dyadic Systems Ltd finds itself a very small fish in a very large pond.

Milestone: Company

July 1989
The Dyalog Duck

Pete Donnelly demonstrates the use of a graphics library for the newly‑supported DOS/386 by drawing a duck. The duck becomes a standard tool for testing and demonstrating new functionality, and people started to complain if ducks were not included in demos!

Milestone: Company

May 1990
A Successful Bid

With some trepidation, and their homes on the line, John Scholes, Pete Donnelly, and Pauline Brand put together a successful offer to buy Dyadic Systems Ltd and achieve independence from Lynwood Scientific Developments.

Milestone: Company

Summer 1990
Dyalog APL/X in the USA

Dyalog APL/X for Sun and IBM RS/6000 starts to gain significant sales with New York financial institutions, who are major users of these platforms.

Milestone: Product

October 1991
64-bit Dyalog (for UNIX)

Support for 64-bit Dyalog (on UNIX) is introduced with Dyalog v6.1.

Milestone: Product

May 1995
Dyalog for Microsoft Windows

Dyalog for Microsoft Windows is released with Dyalog v7.1.

Milestone: Product

June 1995
Iverson Award

At APL95 in San Antonio, John Scholes and Pete Donnelly are awarded the Kenneth E. Iverson Award for Outstanding Contribution to APL for their work on the Dyalog product line.

Milestone: Company

2001
Dyalog .NET

Microsoft invite Dyadic Systems Ltd to join a secret project "X" which was to become Microsoft .NET. Dyadic Systems Ltd is invited to join the project right at the beginning and tasked to develop a .NET‑compatible version of Dyalog that would be launched along with the launch of Microsoft .NET itself.

Milestone: Product

May 2001
BAA Outstanding Achievement Award

John Daintree is awarded the British APL Association's Outstanding Achievement Award for his ground-breaking work on Dyalog.NET.

Milestone: Company

2002
The Parting of the Ways

John Scholes, Pete Donnelly, and Pauline Brand decide to sell the hardware business. To facilitate the transaction, Pete Donnelly, John Scholes, and the APL business and staff are first transferred to a new company, Dyalog Ltd. Dyadic Systems Ltd, retaining the majority of the employees and the hardware business, is subsequently sold to Syan Ltd.

Milestone: Company

September 2003
First Dyalog User Meeting

On discovering that the APL conference would no longer be held yearly, Dyalog Ltd holds the first of what will become annual user meetings. This takes place near Okham in Surrey.

Milestone: Company

November 2004
End of an Era

John Scholes and Pete Donnelly approach Morten Kromberg and Gitte Christensen at the 2004 APL Conference in Naples Beach, Florida, with the idea that they should take over running Dyalog Ltd, backed by a consortium of customers.

Milestone: Company

April 2005
Start of a New Era

Gitte Christensen and Morten Kromberg take over running Dyalog Ltd as CEO and CTO respectively, backed by SimCorp and APL Italiana.

Milestone: Company

October 2006
64-bit Dyalog (for Microsoft Windows)

Support for 64-bit Dyalog (on Microsoft Windows) is introduced with Dyalog v11.0.

Milestone: Product

August 2008
Unicode Edition Introduced

Support for Unicode is introduced with Dyalog v12.0.

Milestone: Product

June 2014
Dyalog for Raspberry Pi

Dyalog for the Raspberry Pi is released with Dyalog v14.0.

Milestone: Product

June 2015
Dyalog for macOS

Dyalog for macOS is released with Dyalog v14.1.

Milestone: Product

October 2016
Iverson Award (Again!)

At Dyalog '16 in Glasgow, Gitte Christensen and Morten Kromberg are honoured as the latest recipients of the Kenneth E. Iverson Award for Outstanding Contribution to APL.

Milestone: Company

January 2024
A Change at the Top

After leading Dyalog Ltd for 18 years and successfully navigating many challenges, Gitte Christensen retires and Stine Kromberg becomes the new Managing Director (CEO).

Milestone: Company


Could You Be Part of Our Future?

We always welcome hearing from talented individuals who are interested in joining our team.

Get Support

Technical advice and assistance on all aspects of Dyalog usage is available by e-mail (support@dyalog.com) and/or telephone (+44 1256 830030 – limited to U.K. office hours). Limited advice on design and coding is available, but is not intended to replace the use of the printed and on-line documentation. Except when reporting an issue with the software, users are encouraged to seek advice from the user community via the Dyalog Forum (reading the content of the forums does not require membership).

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