Version 5.00 is the latest version of the now well established Derive computer algebra system. Derive had its roots in the Mu-Math program first released in 1979 with the first version of Derive produced by Al Rich and David Stoutemyer at the Soft Warehouse appearing in 1988. Derive 1.00 was a MS-DOS program able to run on a basic IBM-PC compatible computer with 8088 processor 512 kbyte of RAM and one 360kb floppy disc drive. It was contemporary with the first appearance of Mathematica (initially available on Macintosh computers only!) and preceded the first MS-DOS version of Maple. At that time University undergraduate computer laboratories were for reasons of cost not generally equipped with computers capable of running Mathematica or Maple so in its early years Derive offered the only practical route for those of us who wanted to teach our students the use of computer algebra systems. Not that using Derive was any great disadvantage – it offered a simple and fairly intuitive user interface and adequate capability for most undergraduate uses. At the time it seemed a small miracle to have a computer algebra system able to run on machines of such modest specification! Derive Version 5.00 still runs on any computer which has the minimal capability of running indows95 Windows98 or WindowsNT with a CD-ROM drive and 3Mbytes free space on its hard drive – still pretty minimal beside the average bloated software package of the 21st century!
