Hi there.
Probing a little further using the help page on special functions I had
trouble loading "specfun.o" (because it wasn't present, although the
relevant .mac etc were).
(%i3) load("specfun.o");
Could not find `specfun.o' using paths in
FILE_SEARCH_MAXIMA,FILE_SEARCH_LISP (combined values:
[C:/Documents and Settings/mike/maxima/###.{mac,mc},
C:/lang/Maxima-5.9.0.9beta1/share/maxima/5.9.0.9beta1/share/###.{mac,mc},
C:/#
lang/Maxima-5.9.0.9beta1/share/maxima/5.9.0.9beta1/share/{affine,algebra,calculus,combinatorics,contrib,contrib/nset,contrib/pdiff#
,diffequations,graphics,integequations,integration,macro,matrix,misc,numeric,physics,simplification,specfunctions,sym,tensor,trigo#
nometry,utils,vector}/###.{mac,mc}, C:/Documents and
Settings/mike/maxima/###.{o,lisp,lsp},
C:/lang/Maxima-5.9.0.9beta1/share/maxima/5.9.0.9beta1/share/###.{o,lisp,lsp},
C:/lang/Maxima-5.9.0.9beta1/share/maxima/5.9.0.9beta#
1/share/{affine,algebra,calculus,combinatorics,contrib,contrib/nset,contrib/pdiff,diffequations,graphics,integequations,integratio#
n,macro,matrix,misc,numeric,physics,simplification,specfunctions,sym,tensor,trigonometry,utils,vector}/###.{o,lisp,lsp},
C:/lang/Maxima-5.9.0.9beta1/share/maxima/5.9.0.9beta1/src/###.{o,lisp,lsp}]
)
-- an error. Quitting. To debug this try DEBUGMODE(TRUE);)
(%i4) [hermite(0,x),hermite(1,x),hermite(2,x)];
(%o4) [hermite(0, x), hermite(1, x), hermite(2, x)]
(%i5) load("specfun")$
(%i6) load("specfun");
(%o6)
C:/lang/Maxima-5.9.0.9beta1/share/maxima/5.9.0.9beta1/share/specfunctions/specfun.mac
(%i7) [hermite(0,x),hermite(1,x),hermite(2,x)];
2
(%o7) [1, 2 x, - 2 (1 - 2 x )]
(%i8) diff(hermite(n,x),x);
(%o8) 2 n hermite(n - 1, x)