Richard--
> I think that many of the Lisps simply do not exist and
> their conditionalizations could be removed in the interests
> of un-obfuscating the code.
Maxima is based on DOE Macsyma from 1980, as I understand it, so many of
the ports were presumably tested at the time. This means that they
might be useful as indications of what has to be changed for unCommon
Lisps.
I included the list with Multics etc. mostly to show how strange the
list of implementations was... as it happens, there is an ITS system
available on the Internet for public use (not running on a hardware
PDP-10, of course, but emulated), so presumably the MacLisp version
could be tested!
> the conditionalizations for Franz might be "minimal maclisp needed for
maxima".
That's a good hint, thanks. Did this particular version of DOE Macsyma
run successfully on Franz?
> Is there a Franz for the PocketPC? or Xlisp?
No idea. But if we have a crisp definition of the requirements (via
Franz), then it becomes easier to see what is missing or incompatible in
other versions.
> It seems to me that some of the features you need to do computer
> algebra reasonably well include a large display, keyboard, and
> off-line storage.
I think it depends on the goal. I often want a symbolic calculator to
do small symbolic calculations, such as expanding some expression as a
Taylor series (usually just one or two terms), or factoring a small
polynomial, or solving a small equation, or summing a simple series. Or
even just playing with some formula in various ways. And yes, I agree
that if your PDA is connected full-time to a network, what runs on the
PDA itself is less interesting. Are you volunteering to run the Maxima
server on the PDA network?
-s