Quick Revision History of Mathematica

2009

• Performance enhancements to core image-processing functions
• Right-click menu for quick image manipulation
• New tutorials, "How to" guides, and screencasts
• Thousands of new examples in the documentation
• Improved documentation search
• Integration with mathematical handwriting-recognition features of Windows 7
• Integration with the upcoming release of gridMathematica Server

2008

• Built-in parallel high-performance computing (HPC)
• Integrated image processing
• New on-demand curated data, including genomic data, protein data, and current and historical weather data
• Many new usability and productivity features
• Charting and information visualization
• Vector field visualization
• Comprehensive spline support, including NURBS
• Industrial-strength Boolean computation
• Statistical model analysis
• Integrated geodesy and GIS data
• Many symbolic computation breakthroughs, including discrete calculus, sequence recognition, and transcendental roots

2008

• Comprehensive list of standard extra packages added to the Documentation Center
• Improvements to package documentation
• Improved options handling for MatrixForm and TableForm
• Enhanced front end stability with Manipulate containing a selected graphic
• Improved options handling for ListPlot
• Improved handling of AxesLabel and Ticks combinations
• Improved handling of numerical data without spaces in Protein Data Bank (PDB) import
• Changed winding in LightWave Object (LWO) export to better adhere to industry standards
• Improved interactivity under Linux with compositing window managers, such as Compiz
• Improved font handling on Ubuntu Hardy and Fedora Core 9

2008

• New Virtual Book documentation with updated Mathematica Book content
• New Function Navigator, an easily browsable overview of all Mathematica objects
• Several additional documentation enhancements, including performance improvements, indexing, and link trails
• Full 64-bit performance on Intel Macs
• Improved performance of Import and Export converters on Mac and Unix
• Significant speedup in import of binary data files
• Improved handling of graphics when exporting to TeX and PDF
• Enhanced import of metadata from FITS astronomical image files
• New coordinate-picking tool and improved highlighting of graphical selections for interactive graphics

2007

• Enhanced automatic and manual proxy settings for internet connectivity
• More extensive documentation on legacy Mathematica functions
• Significantly improved MathLink performance on Mac and Unix systems
• Improved performance of various Import and Export converters
• Faster ListPlot, ListPlot3D, and Plot3D for large numbers of points
• Improved help-system initialization
• Extensions to automatic file type recognition for Import
• Complete support for scaled FontSize values
• Enhancements to Table, CSV, TSV, and MathML import
• Evaluate Notebook menu item, and Magnification submenu
• Additional Mathematica function examples and tutorials
• Updates to curated data

2007

• Dynamic interactivity, allowing sophisticated interactive interfaces to be created from single lines of input
• High-impact adaptive visualization for automated creation of high-fidelity function and data graphics
• Language for data integration, including automatic integration of hundreds of standard data formats
• Load-on-demand curated data for math, physics, chemistry, finance, geography, linguistics, and more
• Symbolic interface construction for immediate creation of arbitrary interfaces from simple programs
• Automated computational aesthetics, with algorithmic optimization for visual presentation
• Unification of active graphics and controls with flowing text and input

More Details  

2005

• All-platform support for 64-bit addressing
• Multicore support on major platforms
• Multithreaded numerical linear algebra
• 64-bit-enhanced arbitrary-precision numerics
• Vector-based performance enhancements
• Automatic binary installation selection
• Bundled notebook indexing for desktop search
• SSH support for secure remote kernels
• vCard and RSS import
• New algorithms for symbolic differential equations
• Enhanced performance for linear Diophantine systems
• Enhanced quadratic quantifier elimination
• Singular-case support for high-level special functions
• Enhanced statistics charts
• MathematicaMark 5.2 benchmark now covering grids and clusters

More Details  

2004

• Industrial-strength string manipulation
• Built-in universal database connectivity
• Highly optimized binary data I/O
• Additional import-export formats, including XLS and AVI
• Integrated web services support
• 2D and 3D automated network visualization
• High-performance array visualization
• Numerical linear algebra performance enhancements
• Fully integrated piecewise functions
• Integration over implicitly defined regions
• Event handling in numerical differential equations
• New algorithms for symbolic differential equations
• Cluster analysis capabilities added
• Interactive exploration tool for differential equations
• MathematicaMark benchmarking tool
• GUIKit interface and application builder built in

More Details  

2003

• Record-breaking speed through processor-optimized numerical linear algebra
• Full support for high-speed sparse linear algebra
• New-generation optimized numerical solvers for ordinary and partial differential equations
• Major new algorithms for solving equations and inequalities symbolically over different domains
• Fully integrated solver for differential algebraic equations
• High-performance optimization and linear programming, including interior point method
• More generalized numeric solvers expanded to accept vector and general array variables
• Industry-leading solver for recurrence equations
• Broader support for assumptions in symbolic computation
• Included .NET/Link, providing full integration with Microsoft's .NET Framework
• Flexible import and export of DICOM, PNG, SVG, and sparse matrix formats
• Optimized versions for 64-bit hardware and operating systems
• New quick-start interactive tutorial

More Details  

2002

• Transparent Java integration with J/Link 2.0 and built-in Java Runtime Engine
• Improved linear programming and optimization
• Speed and robustness improvements for many numerical functions
• Improved simplifier
• Statistics enhancements, including new ANOVA package
• New bundled Combinatorica package for combinatorics and graph theory
• New bundled AuthorTools package for technical publishing
• Slide show environment for presentations
• New import and export formats, including FITS and STDS
• XML extensions that allow Mathematica notebooks and expressions to be stored as XML
• New bundled XML tools package for symbolic XML manipulation
• Support for XHTML export, including stylesheets
• Extended MathML 2.0 support

More Details  

2000

• Macintosh OS X version introduced (Version 4.1.5 in 2001)
• Greatly enhanced symbolic differential equation solvers
• Enhanced Mathematica pattern matcher and compiler, increasing speed and minimizing memory consumption
• New standard package for integration over inequality-defined regions and piecewise functions
• Dramatic speed improvements in statistics functions
• Conversion between linear systems of equations and matrices
• Java integration with J/Link 1.1
• Improved MathML integration on the web
• Support for saving in IBM techexplorer format
• New and faster import and export filters for Excel files, tabular data, and compressed BMP, DXF, and STL
• Support for real-time manipulation of 3D graphics on Linux and Unix platforms
• Sound support under X
• Routines for plotting graphics defined by inequalities
• Support for PowerPC Linux and AlphaLinux
• Discrete trigonometric package
• Enhanced look and feel for the X front end

More Details  

1999

• Extensive enhancements in speed and efficiency in numerical calculation
• Publishing documents in a variety of formats
• Spell checking and hyphenation in the notebook interface
• Direct import and export from over 20 standard data, graphics, and sound file formats
• Extended range and improved functions for data analysis including correlation, convolution, and a new Fourier transform algorithm
• Support for handling computations in specified algebraic domains
• Network license management availability on all platforms
• Enhancements to many built-in Mathematica functions

More Details  

1996

• Interactive mathematical typesetting system
• Algebraic numbers
• Mathematica compiler extended to work with arrays of machine numbers
• Support for nonlinear least squares with Levenberg-Marquardt technique
• Improved interpolation (important in finding the result of numerical ordinary differential equations)
• Interval arithmetic
• New functions for simplifying and transforming expressions
• Optimized Groebner basis functions
• Many new special functions
• Exception-based programming flow control

More Details  

1993

• Windows front end with new notebook commands
• Separate front end on Macintosh
• X front end
• MathLink for Windows
• Linux version
• Isocontour plotting routine added
• Package for symbolic solutions of first-order partial differential equations added
• Ten other packages added in areas such as three-dimensional contour plotting, variational calculus, and music
• New help features, including online manuals on X Windows and a Function Browser on Macintosh and NeXT
• Faster numerical solutions of sparse linear systems of equations
• Symbolic definite integration expanded to include tests for nonintegrable singularities and also handle branch cuts in the range of integration

More Details  

1992

• Upgrade of contour plotting algorithm
• Unix MathLink enhancements and documentation
• MathLink for Macintosh
• QuickTime animations for Macintosh version
• Support for Windows 3.1
• Unix and PC thin-version installation for reduced memory usage
• New packages added in areas such as nonlinear fitting, binary file manipulation, Dirac delta functions, and sound synthesis

More Details  

1991 (first major update)

• Numerical ordinary differential equation solver
• Numerical compiler
• Linear algebra improvements
• Implementation of Risch algorithm for Integrate
• Symbolic ordinary differential equation solver
• Series extended to many special functions
• ParametricPlot3D added
• Many extra embellishments for graphics
• Improved hidden-surface elimination for 3D graphics
• Many string and file operations
• MathLink protocol for interprocess and network-based communication
• Sound support
• Support of foreign character sets
• Error detection and debugging
• Notebook front end

More Details  

1989

• Macintosh front end
• Support for remote kernels
• Symbolic integration greatly enhanced
• Rudimentary differential equation-solving capabilities with DSolve
• Solving of transcendental and other equations that require explicit use of inverse functions
• Exact interpolating polynomials
• LinearProgramming, ConstrainedMax, and ConstrainedMin added
• MatrixPower and MatrixExp added
• Groebner bases added
• Modulus options added to Det, Inverse, and LinearSolve
• Statistics and Graphics standard packages added
• Many new graphics options and features, including axes and labels for 3D graphics
• Much more efficient multivariate polynomial GCD (greatest common divisor) and factorization

More Details  

1988

• Initial release of Mathematica

More Details