playboy@wacsvax.OZ (McIsaac K) (07/29/85)
While at the 1984 MACSYMA users conference I heard about "The Dream". It was the result of a PhD. thesis (I think). It is a front end for MACSYMA, providing scroll back, mathmatical layout and part selection by pointing for algebraic expressions. I have long wanted to have better output from the algebra packages I've been using (REDUCE, SMP), because of the length of the expressions I generate (I'm a theoretical physicist). It occured to me some time ago that the Macintosh (or similar ) would be ideal for such a task as it has a mouse for pointing to expressions, its own storage for scroll back and very powerfull font system (Greek/Math Super-Subscript, half line .....). I would like any references to thesis, papers, publications or programs that deal with formating, printing, graphical selection etc of algebraic expressions. Kevin McIsaac
soiffer@tekchips.UUCP (Neil Soiffer) (08/07/85)
Wm Leler and I have added a "flashy" interface onto Reduce which has most of the features you mentioned. It runs on a Tektronix 4404 workstation. The interface displays exponents, integrals, square roots, matrices, etc in their natural form. It uses the mouse to select expressions (for input into reduce) and to collapse very large expressions (so that their overall structure is visible). The screen can be scrolled up and down and individual expressions can be scrolled left and right. We do not use italics and different size fonts for several reasons (the most important of which relates to screen resolution). We do have a few "useful" greek letters and will have the full alphabet if we ever find a public domain greek font. We presented a paper on the interface at "The third International Conference on Applied Alebra, Algebraic Algorithms, Symbolic Computation and Error Correcting Codes" (AAECC-3) last month. The proceedings will (probably) be published by Springer-Verlag towards the end of the year. We demonstrated the interface at AAECC-3. An earlier version was also demonstrated at Eurocal in Linz. Tektronix is selling Reduce with the interface as an "unsupported product" (Reduce has always been an "unsupported product"). As far as I know, it is the only fully working interface that is being distributed. The drawback to the interface is that it only works on a Tek 4404. If there is a strong interest indicated, we might port it to other workstations (or smart terminals). We hope to port the interface to other computer algebra systems if legal and logistical arrangements can be worked out. Neil Soiffer ...ucbvax!tektronix!tekchips!soiffer