What is "macsyma"

Macsyma (Project MAC’s SYmbolic MAnipulator) is one the oldest general purpose computer algebra systems which is still widely used. It was originally developed from 1968 to 1982 at MIT's Project MAC.

In 1982, Macsyma was licensed to Symbolics and became a commercial product. In 1992, Symbolics Macsyma was spun off to Macsyma, Inc., which continued to develop Macsyma until 1999. That version is still available for Microsoft's Windows XP operating system.

The 1982 version of MIT Macsyma remained available to academics and US government agencies, and it is distributed by the US Department of Energy (DOE). That version, DOE Macsyma, was maintained by Bill Schelter. Under the name of Maxima, it was released under GPL license in 1999, and remains under active maintenance.