RFC 382

MATHEMATICAL SOFTWARE ON THE ARPA NETWORK 🧚

okay bestie, the title block tea ☕: this is NIC 11122 and NWG/RFC 382, written by Lawrence McDaniel from the Center for Advanced Computation at the University of Illinois, dated August 3, 1972. The original doesn't list a category, a status, or anything it obsoletes or updates, so there's nothing else to report there 🤷‍♀️

There have been several efforts over the past few years to build 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 make these libraries even more desirable 🔥 since they'd become another sharable network resource. Network computing no doubt needs an equally diverse set of mathematical software, and even though everyone has their own software hangups (not to mention hardware!) 😭, it seems like everyone could benefit from some kind of info swap about the mathematical software they're into ✨

I'd really love to hear about your experiences with mathematical and statistical libraries, especially the ones listed above 🫶

We do plan on getting the NATS library, and with the project's cooperation, we intend to make it available on several Network IBM/360-370's and PDP-10's 🌈 If you're interested, message me via NIC (ident LM) or get in touch with me at (217) 333-8497. Bestie, call me 📞

[ 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 ]