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The Maxima system is a version of the MIT Macsyma symbolic
manipulation system. Maxima is built on top-of AKCL and is about
6.5MB in size. Just type
to start it up. Then you'll see a greeting and the advice to type
(run) to enter maxima top level. Through (run),
three initialization files are also loaded into maxima:
These files should begin with (in-package 'maxima) and be
written in CL. The file maximarc.lsp is for modification of the maxima
system. The other files are used by each user for other appropriate
purposes when needed.
The man page on Maxima also gives information on the location of files and indicate other UNIX shell-level commands related to Maxima.
The UNIX command
can be used to consult on-line documentation for maxima related to the
given key word which can be a function, a variable or other related
words. The graphics package SIG for displaying curves and surfaces through
the X window system has been ported to Maxima. It also means that the
free standing UNIX level command
can be used to produce graphics from a graphics data file. The man page
for xgraph has details.