Computation

University of Illinois

August 3, 1972

MATHEMATICAL SOFTWARE ON THE ARPA NETWORK

There have been several efforts in the past few years to develop high

quality libraries of mathematical and statistical subroutines. Some

of the projects mentioned in the literature include:

1 The Bell Laboratories numerical mathematics program library project.

2 IMSL Inc.: IMSL Library I, mathematical-statistical computer

subroutines

3 The NATS (National Science Foundation,Argonne Laboratories, Stanford

and Texas) joint project on the Wilkinson linear algebra routines.

The ARPA Network could further enhance the desirability of such libraries

as they would become another sharable network resource. Although the

diversity of network computing no doubt requires an equally diverse set

of mathematical software, and in spite of the fact everyone has their

own software hangups - not to mention hardware!, it seems everyone

could benefit from some type of information interchange regarding mathe-

matical software of interest.

In particular I would welcome any information on your experiences with

mathematical and statistical libraries, especially regarding those

mentioned above.

We do plan on obtaining the NATS library and with the project's cooperation,

intend to make it available on several Network IBM/360-370's and PDP-10's.

Those interested should send me a message via NIC (ident LM) or get in

touch with me at (217) 333-8497.

[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ]

       [ into the online RFC archives by BBN Corp. under the   ]
       [ direction of Alex McKenzie.                      1/97 ]

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