I am very pleased to write these few brief paragraphs introducing this book, and would like to take this opportunity to attempt to set the Toolpack project in an appropriate historical context. The Toolpack project must be considered to have actually began in the Fall of 1978, when Prof. Webb C. Miller, at a meeting at Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, California, suggested that there be a large-scale project, called Toolpack, aimed at pulling together a comprehensive collection of mathematical software development tools. It was suggested that the project follow the pattern of other...