The ECN No Name Newsletter is no longer being published. This is an archived issue.
[previous article] [next article]A new release of the IMSL (International Mathematical and Statistical Libraries) was recently announced, and will soon be installed on ECN machines. This release is numbered 10.0, and implements several changes from the version we are currently running (release 9.2). Some of the more important features of this release are: the Math Library, the Stat Library, and the SFUN Library. This has two advantages: First, search time for the libraries will be faster, making your compiles take less time. Second, the documentation has also been split into three parts, making manuals cheaper to purchase.
A compatibility library has been provided so that you can still compile your old programs.
This means that you will no longer need to calculate array sizes and so on to pass to the routines; it will be done automatically for you. This should make programming much easier.
These manuals are quite inexpensive. Depending upon demand, the ECN may offer these manuals for sale at the Purdue Armory. More on this later.
As of September 1, we have received the IMSL distribution for the VAX systems. The Gould distribution should arrive sometime in September, we hope. In order to preserve compatibility between the Vaxes and Goulds however, we will not install release 10.0 until the Gould distribution arrives, at which time the Goulds and Vaxes will be converted at the same time.
Since the Gould distribution did not arrive before the start of fall semester, we will delay installation until Christmas break, in order to avoid causing people problems during the semester. We will be announcing a definite conversion schedule once we have definite information about the Gould release.
At present, the cost of installing IMSL on the Sun workstations is extremely high, beyond what we can afford (several thousand dollars per workstation). We are negotiating with IMSL to work out a price more to our liking, but at present nothing definite has been decided on. We hope to work something out before the end of the year, but until that time, IMSL is not available on the Suns.
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