On the user's point of view

In this discussion, I shall try to identify those general criteria for interactive on-line systems which seem most important for the experimental solution of mathematical problems. To illustrate some of these, I shall refer to Professor Glen Culler's on-line system [1, 3], which has been in operation at the University of California at Santa Barbara since 1966. While it is far from an ideal system, I believe that it still ranks first in terms of the number of real problems (of at least moderate difficulty) which have actually been solved, by a variety of users, with the aid of this system or one of its earlier versions. Its strengths and weaknesses have, therefore, some general relevance to a discussion of on-line systems for experimental applied mathematics.