
			F o r m

				Jos Vermaseren (t68@nikhef.nl)
				Nikhef-H, Amsterdam (the Netherlands).

Form is a symbolic manipulation language, specially designed for very
large expressions. It contains up to now very little knowledge, but there
are elements in the language that lets the users construct procedures.
Currently it is kind of complementary to programs like Maple and Mathematica.
It will take over when they get stuck wrt the size of the problem.
It has also extensive features for vector manipulation.

Version 1 of Form is available for free by means of anonymous ftp.
The site is nikhefh.nikhefh.nl and there is also a .dvi file of the
manual there. There are of the order of 15 executables, most notably
executables for MSDOS, AtariST, Mac, SUN3, SPARC/SUN4, Apollo, NeXT,
VAX/VMS, VAX/Ultrix, DECstation and then some.

Version 2 will be a commercial program and should come out by the end
of june or early july (depends on how fast the manual can be printed,
the text is ready and so is the program). It has many more features
and fewer restrictions than version 1. The publisher will have an
email address for inquiry but that hasn't been made yet. Currently
questions should be sent to J.Vermaseren who is t68@nikhef.nl

Form has been used up to now for a number of gigantic problems in
particle physics and for obtaining a partial solution to a horrendous
set of equations in grouptheory. The common feature of these problems
is that general methods would not work for them, so the solution had
to be guided by hand anyway. In addition they were too big for
any other program.

I hope this helps a little bit and is what you want.

Jos Vermaseren
NIKHEF-H
