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Macsyma

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Macsyma is a computer algebra system that was originally developed from 1968 to 1982 at the MIT AI Lab as part of Project MAC. It was the first comprehensive symbolic mathematics system.

The project was initiated by William A. Martin (polynomial arithmetic), Carl Engelman, and Joel Moses (indefinite integration, simplifier) in July, 1968. Additional early work was contributed by many including P. Loewe, T. Williams, Richard Fateman (rational functions, pattern matching, arbitrary precision floating-point), E. Tsiang (power series), and Paul Wang (limits, definite integrals).

Joel Moses had been head of the MACSYMA project at MIT and Richard Pavelle had been a staff member at MIT and a chief proponent of the use of Macsyma to applications in engineering and the sciences. In 1981 Moses and Pavelle attempted to form a company to distribute, commercialize and support MACSYMA. However, MIT invented a new policy that would "not allow MIT personnel to become wealthy from MIT developments" (at least in the case of Macsyma). In early 1982 Macsyma was licensed by MIT to Arthur D. Little, Inc. and they became the broker for Macsyma. ADL licensed Macsyma to Symbolics in late 1982. Symbolics developed Macsyma under Richard Pavelle for several years, but eventually came to see it as a diversion from the sales of Lisp machines, which they considered their main business. This, despite the fact that many Lisp Machines were purchased owing to Macsyma and generated a substantial fraction of Symbolics sales. When Symbolics folded so too did the Macsyma division.

In 1982, MIT submitted a copy of Macsyma to the United States Department of Energy, that was one of the major funders of Macsyma development. This version of Macsyma was called DOE Macsyma.

Macsyma, Inc., was founded in 1992 by Russell Noftkser, who had cofounded Symbolics, and purchased all rights to Macsyma from Symbolics and continued development for several years. In 1999, Macsyma was acquired by Tenedos LLC, a holding company. At present the holding company has not rereleased or resold Macsyma, but it continues to be distributed by Symbolics.

There is also an open source version, called Maxima, which is based on the 1982 version of the DOE Macsyma, and is under active development.

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