The status of systems for on-line mathematical assistance

Accelerated by the advent of time-sharing, on-line systems of all types have come into being during the past five years. All of these systems are designed to facilitate the interchange of information between the user and the machine. The applications to which such systems have been put are numerous and extremely varied, yet those systems which attempt to provide a general facility for mathematical computation form a relatively small class. This paper attempts to survey and analyze some members of this restricted class in order to illustrate their common features, strong points, and areas of weakness, as well as to indicate some of the features which are desirable in any system designed to provide on-line mathematical assistance. We believe that these systems, when implemented on third generation computers, will serve large numbers of users, including numerical analysts, scientists and engineers.