FormMath for muLISP-87/muMATH

Software from the 80s.

Description

muMATH is a computer algebra system (CAS), which was developed in the late 1970s and early eighties by Albert D. Rich and David Stoutemyer of Soft Warehouse in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was implemented in the muSIMP programming language which was built on top of a LISP dialect called muLISP. Platforms supported were CP/M and TRS-DOS (since muMATH-79), Apple II (since muMATH-80) and DOS (in muMATH-83, the last version, which was published by Microsoft).

FormMath is an extension for muLISP-87 (16 bits), that I implemented in 1989. It’s a formatter which displays in 2D the mathematical expressions calculated by muMATH. When the expression doesn’t fit the 25x80 DOS screen, an horizontal/vertical scrolling is activated.

Tested with muLISP-87 IBM PC MS-DOS Version 6.03 (07/12/88), using DOSBox-X or DOSBox or vDosPlus.

Source files

The source files are encoded CP-437. Code page 437 is the character set of the original IBM PC (personal computer), or DOS.

The tab size is 8 characters.

The comments are in french.

When you load the source file EXTSRC/FORMMATH.MUS in your editor, you should see something like that:

FORMMATH.MUS

The break characters in SRC/MUSIMP.LSP must be displayed like that:

Break characters

Creation of the file MUMATH.SYS with FormMath preloaded

Create a directory DIR.

Copy your executable MULISP.COM in the directory DIR.

Copy the files EXTSRC/EXTMLISP.BIN, EXTSRC/EXTMLISP.LSP, EXTSRC/FORMMATH.MUS in the directory DIR.

Copy your muMATH source files in the directory DIR.
Update July 10, 2023: Doesn’t work with the official sources of MuMath-83.
I can’t publish the modified sources because they are based on files that are copyrighted by The Soft Warehouse.

Insert the contents of the file SRC/ARITH%.MUS in the file DIR/ARITH.MUS, before the demo section.

Idem for SRC/ARRAY%.ARI, SRC/EQN%.ALG, SRC/LOG%.ALG, SRC/SOLVE%.EQN.

Copy the file SRC/MUSIMP.LSP in the directory DIR.

Then execute this sequence of commands (the indentation is used to better visualize the dependencies):

mulisp                                      % Start muLISP %
(load "EXTMLISP.LSP")                       % Load the binary extension EXTMLISP.BIN %
(load "MUSIMP.LSP")                         % Load the surface language muSIMP %
    rds("FORMMATH.MUS");
    save("MUSIMP.SYS");                     % At this step, you have the muSIMP language with FormMath preloaded %
    demo: nil;                              % to not execute the demos %
    rds("ARITH.MUS");                       % 10/01/83 %
        rds("ALGEBRA.ARI");                 % 09/28/83 %
            rds("ABSVAL.ALG");              % 10/01/83 %
            rds("DIF.ALG");                 % 09/30/83 %
                rds("INT.DIF");             % 12/17/83 %
                    rds("INTMORE.INT");     % 09/22/83 %
                rds("LIM.DIF");             % 10/01/83 %
                rds("SIGMA.DIF");           % 10/01/83 %
            rds("EQN.ALG");                 % 10/01/83 %
                rds("SOLVE.EQN");           % 10/01/83 %
                    rds("ODE.SOL");         % 12/17/83 %
                        rds("ODEMORE.ODE"); % 12/17/83 %
                        rds("ODENTH.ODE");  % 12/17/83 %
            rds("HYPER.ALG");               % 01/09/84 %
            rds("LOG.ALG");                 % 10/01/83 %
            rds("TRG.ALG");                 % 01/09/84 %
                rds("ATRG.TRG");            % 10/01/83 %
        rds("ARRAY.ARI");                   % 09/27/83 %
            rds("MATRIX.ARR");              % 10/01/83 %
                rds("LINEQN.MAT");          % 10/01/83 %
            rds("VEC.ARR");                 % 10/01/83 %
                rds("VECDIF.VEC");          % 10/01/83 %
    rds("APPROXIM.MUS");                    % 07/09/89 %
    demo: 'demo;
    save("MUMATH.SYS");                     % At this step, you have the muMATH system with FormMath preloaded %
    system();                               % Exit muLISP %

Demo

Demo 1

vDosPlus                                    # Launch the emulator vDosPlus
chcp 437                                    # Select the code page 437
mulisp mumath                               # Launch muMATH
v1:(a+b)^2;
v2:expand(v1);
v3:sqrt(v2);

Demo 2

solve(a x^2 + b x + c == 0, x);

% Result is more than 80 characters --> scrolling activated %
sigma(j^2 3^j, j, 1, m);

Demo 3

https://github.com/jlfaucher/FormMath/assets/3055606/1a454fc1-129d-45e5-9d3f-ee3246d1a242

lineqn ([a^2 x + y == 3,  x - y == 2], [x, y]);
int (x^2 c ^ (a x + b),  x);
int (x^2 / (x^2 - x + 1),  x);

% Result is more than 80 characters --> scrolling activated %
idmat (30);
trgexpd (solve (expd ((x-1)(x-2)(x+4)), x), -7);
solve(a x^3 + b x^2 + c x + d == 0, x);

Memories

In memory of Albert Rich.

muMATH / muSIMP System for Apple II with SoftCard and CP/M-80.
French magazine in 1984.
Symbolic calculator HP-28S in 1988…