01/10/2026 - APDL relaunched

We are delighted to announce that after too many years, and many thousands of hours the majority of the APDL content is finally again available online via:

The process of salvaging APDL was kick started by Dave Holden's family after his untimely death. Without their help and support this project would have been impossible.

All of the currently available APDL applications and documentation are supplied via a donation-based payment system. This new model allows you to download any (or all) of APDL products available on our site without making a payment. If you want to help you can make an entirely optional donation that will help us host current APDL products and work on the release of further APDL software.

The only restriction is that any person downloading a product will need to agree to the product licence conditions before the downloads commence. Whilst we are supplying the products free of charge this does not mean that the APDL software is freeware or open source, it's still copyright material and is supplied subject to a licence. So if you are asked for a copy of an APDL product please send the enquirer the above link rather than copies of the software and/or documentation.

While we encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity, we would also like to express our gratitude for any voluntary donations you may wish to make. Your contributions will help us cover hosting and operational costs, ensuring the continued availability and development of our resources. However, please note that making a donation is entirely optional, and all users are welcome to access the APDL software without any financial obligation.

Almost all the applications have new PDF format documentation and some applications also include documentation in HTML format. The PDF documents have been rewritten extensively with new colour illustrations and screenshots and are designed to be used onscreen or printed A4 doubled sided.

Given the range of products we are reluctantly having to release the APDL software 'as is' with no guarantee to its suitability for a particular purpose. Being a small company we are also unable to offer technical support because we simply don't have the resources to do so. Each product page has information that will show which versions of RISC OS a particular product is compatible with. Thank you for your continued support and engagement with the RISC OS community.

As well as the updated commercial APDL applications we have also created a much improved version of the APDL PD catalogue. Now each archive (disc) can be downloaded from the text description rather than the user having to write down a reference number then manually navigate to a separate folder and then find the correct filename in a folder with hundreds of similarly titled files. We have even given the RISCWorld magazine archive a final quick polish by spell checking the files and checking the links. We have removed any dead links. for example for companies that no longer exist and updated any links for organisations that are still around.

In particular I would like to personally thank the members of the VirtualAcorn mailing list for their extensive help, location of missing resources and testing of the APDL software and documentation.

Aaron - 3QD Developments Ltd