xSortLab.sea.hqx

                               xSortLab
                             David J. Eck
                   Hobart and William Smith Colleges
                           Geneva, NY 14456
                             eck@hws.edu
 
From the author's description:

	"Sorting" means arranging a list of items into increasing (or
	decreasing) order. There are many different sorting algorithms;
	xSortLab works with five of these: Bubble Sort, Selection Sort,
	Insertion Sort, Merge Sort and QuickSort. You can watch each of
	these methods in action as it sorts sixteen bars of various
	lengths. The program can also (invisibly) sort arrays of
	different sizes and report the execution time, number of
	comparisons, and number of copy operations. This illustrates the
	difference between O(n*log(n)) and O(n-squared) algorithms.
       
For each of the sorting methods included, the user may select the execution
to be "Timed/Uninteruptable", "Timed/Interuptable", "Visual/Fast", or
"Visual/Slow".  The "Visual/Slow" provides a running commentary on how
the sort is done and what decisions the program is making.  This program
should aid the student considerably in understanding these sorting
techniques and the difference between the n log n methods and n^2 methods.

Tested on a PowerMac 7100 running system 7.5.1 with no difficulties.

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