--- Raymond Toy <toy@rtp.ericsson.se> wrote:
> >>>>> "CY" == C Y <smustudent1@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>>A Brief History of Macsyma
>
>>off the Arpanet in 1983. (Interestingly, the closing of the MIT Lisp
>>and Macsyma efforts was a key reason Richard Stallman decided
>>to form the Free Software Foundation.) Between the high prices,
>>closed source code, and neglecting various platforms in favor of Lisp
>>Machines (a product of Symbolics which worked natively in Lisp)
>>pressure came to bear on MIT to release another version to
accommodate
>>these needs,which they did with some reluctance. The new version was
>>distributed
> Do you have references for the things you state here?
For this work my main sources were Richard Fateman's paper A Review of
Macsyma, some of the original Macsyma papers from MIT, and some Usenet
discussions which were opened up when Google extended their archive
back a decade or so. Since Richard himself has kindly read over and
edited my draft, I think the new version should probably not have too
much trouble in this regard. Richard, having been there all the way,
can I think be safely regarded as what historians like to call a
"primary source." That was one of the purposes of my putting this
version up for comment - I had to piece it togeather from what few bits
and pieces I could dig up, which wasn't a whole lot. It's kind of
surprising how little information is readily available.
>> efforts failed. In the summer of 1999 Macsyma Inc. was sold
>> to a holding company, which is seeking large contracts for the
>> product and has removed it completely from the retail market. The
>> other DOE
>Likewise.
In this case, I can cite a usenet post by Richard Petti, who until the
sale was the head of Macsyma Inc., and a similar email I received from
him personally when I wrote him asking what had become of the company
and its product. (That was before the usenet post had been put up.) I
know usenet isn't the greatest place to have to work from for a
history, but in this case since I have essentially the same information
sent directly to me, I think it's credible. The key usenet post is
here:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=macsyma+Petti&hl=en&scoring=d&rnum=4&selm=97rfu2%24o7a%241%40bob.news.rcn.net
> Otherwise, a nice brief history of Macsyma/maxima.
Thanks.
CY
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