ivan@rzsin.sin.ch ("Ivan D. Reid") (11/11/88)
Thanks to all who replied to my question about computer algebra. A few people suggested I summarise my findings, so here they are. I had wanted to wait for last weekend's digests, in case they had anything more, but they appear to have been delayed by The Virus... I found out about three programmes (two directly from the developers). These are REDUCE, SCHOONSCHIP, and MAPLE. Of the three, my only mainframe experience has been with REDUCE (along with SMP), so I cannot compare the programmes at all, although it appears that SCHOONSCHIP might be a bit more "bare-bones" than the other two. All are ports of mainframe programmes. SUMMARY: o REDUCE Available from CODEMIST Ltd., "Alta", Horsecombe Vale, Combe Down, Bath, Avon, BA2 5QR England. Consists of 5 diskettes, includes source and executables plus the Metacomco LISP package, and a printed manual (machine-readable manual available at extra cost). Hard-disk strongly recommended; will run in 1 MB, but takes advantage of more memory. Runs the standard REDUCE test in 240 secs (c.f. VAX 11/780, ~60 s; VAX 6240, 21 s; VAX 8650, 13 s). Price: Stg 326 (plus V.A.T. where applicable). Price firm until mid-Dec. E-mail contact: Professor John Fitch, jpff@bath.maths.ac.uk o SCHOONSCHIP Available from Topsoft, Inc., 2300 Woodside, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. Apparently consists of a ROM cartridge -- no details of memory requirements. Written by the original author of SCHOONSCHIP, Marinus Veltman, in 68000 assembler. Price: apparently about $400. E-mail contact: Marinus Veltman, veltman@(Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor) on BITNET (I haven't been able to verify a node name for this address). o MAPLE Almost available from Watcom Products, 415 Phillip St., Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3X2, Canada. See Jeff Voskamp's recent posting for full details. Port to the Atari is at the Beta-testing stage. Requires 4 MB hard-disk storage and 1 MB memory. Price: will probably be about $400. E-mail contact: Jeff Voskamp, javoskamp@watmum.uwaterloo.ca or javoskamp@watmum.waterloo.cdn I will report at a future date if I ever convince the Institut to actually BUY one of these programmes (I'm currently setting up an introductory demonstration with mainframe REDUCE to try to raise some interest here). Ivan Reid, Phys-Chem Inst., Uni Zuerich.