Re: Mathematica vs. Lisp

From: Brian Downing (see-signature_at_lavos.net)
Date: 06/20/04

  • Next message: David Golden: "Re: Mathematica vs. Lisp" 
    Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 18:32:29 GMT

    In article <none-481818.13073620062004@news.vanderbilt.edu>,
    Sashank Varma <none@vanderbilt.edu> wrote:
    > There are stories somewhere on the net that when Wolfram was
    > a wunderkind at Caltech, he used Macsyma -- the original
    > mathematical software package, written in Mac Lisp -- and
    > talked to some of the programmers about it. However, he
    > didn't like the style or something about Macsyma or Lisp,
    > and so wrote his own language. He wanted to sell it but
    > Caltech claimed ownership, so he left, went to the Institute
    > for Advanced Study and the Illinois, played around will
    > cellulor automata, wrote Mathematica, and launched his
    > company.

    Actually Mathematica strongly resembles an earlier symbolic math package
    called "SMP", which I believe was done at Caltech. All I can find on
    the net in a few minutes that is /not/ at wolfram.com is:

        Steven Wolfram's earlier language for performing symbolic
        mathematics, before he turned to Mathematica.

        "SMP Handbook", C. Cole, Steven Wolfram et al, Caltech 1981.

    I believe there were co-authors to SMP, but I can't find mention of
    them other than C. Cole above.

    I don't know if Macsyma was referenced to develop SMP.

    -bcd 

    -- 
*** Brian Downing <bdowning at lavos dot net>
  • Next message: David Golden: "Re: Mathematica vs. Lisp"

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