PICOMATH-80™

Abstract

The last issue of the Bulletin contained an announcement titled "More about PICOMATH-80", referring to an earlier article that was mistakenly omitted. Here then is the full story about PICOMATH:MuMath 1 was intended to popularize computer algebra by making it available on the personal computers that are increasingly prevalent in homes, schools, and government or commercial research labs. It is too early to assess how much of the intended influence will occur, but the Radio Shack TRS-80 tm version being distributed by Microsoft 2 will surely contribute more significantly toward that goal than does the original version for more expensive personal computers running the CP/M tm operating system. Unfortunately, even the TRS-80 version requires a floppy disk drive and at least 32 kilobytes of RAM storage, whereas most TRS-80 owners have only a cassette drive and 16 kilobytes or less of RAM storage. As a lower bound, the Level I TRS-80 provides only 4 kilobytes of RAM, which permits only 100 statements or so of BASIC. Moveover, Level I BASIC is quite spartan, lacking even primitive string operations or more than a single 1-dimensional array. The least expensive computers produced by Apple, Atari, Commodore, Heath and Texas Instruments similarly provide only a cassette drive, 16 kilobytes of RAM or less, and some built-in dialect of BASIC. These mass marketed minimal machines account for the vast majority of personal computers. Moreover, most people with these machines do not upgrade them to the point where they could run muMATH or something like it if were available for the microprocessor which is employed. Perhaps if they could experience a taste of computer algebra on their machines, their interest would be awakened. Who knows -- perhaps they might ultimately upgrade all the way to a LISP machine, or else encourage their schools or employers to do so.