   Subject: ALG48 v4.0 news
      Date: 17 Apr 1997 22:32:24 +0300
      From: mheiskan@hut.fi (Mika Heiskanen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48

ALG48 is a project started and still continued by Claude-Nicolas Fiechter. I
got interested in the project after the release of the second version, and
Nicolas was gracious enough to send me the sources and finally let me join
the development of the library. The basic functionality, including infinite
precision integer math in assembly language existed before I joined the
project. The design and implementation of most of the elementary functions as
well as advanced functions is by Nicolas. Early on my main contribution was
merely rewriting some of the low level subroutines in assembly language for
speed, but I am glad to say during this time I have acquired enough knowledge
from both Nicolas and literature to be able to contribute to advanced
functions too. In this I include the new Grobner basis commands, not ASIM
which is basically a hack of my earlier uninformed code from POLYLIB. Even
though I did include the SpecFun library in the package, it was nevertheless
Nicolas who wrote the documentation in LaTeX, as well as the excellent ALG48
documentation itself if both LaTeX and html forms.

There were false credits even before v4.0, but for some strange reason they
have increased since the last release. As I see people being amazed by ALG48
I recognize my own amazement when I saw version 0.2, and I find people giving
me credit for it quite embarrassing.

For those who have bothered to read thus far, another detail is that I
originally got interested in ALG48 by searching for other programs by the
author of another program which had amazed me, AVW48. This program could
decompile algebraics into graphic form just like the internal equation
writer...

Thank you for reading through.

--
---
    --> Mika "I don't think Nicolas is getting his fair
        share of trivial ALG48 questions" Heiskanen

        mheiskan@cc.hut.fi  http://www.hut.fi/~mheiskan
