Dear GAP Forum-

For a paper I'm writing I want to include a brief discussion of the origins
and history of GAP. Joachim Neubuser's June `94 preface to the GAP manual
has proven invaluable in this regard. However, I remain partly unclear about
the original motivations for creating GAP. Specifically, what aspects of
(for example) the CAYLEY system (now MAGMA) and the work of Pless/Leon et al.
at UIC made those systems undesirable in contrast to the GAP design ?

Thanks in advance for any comments on this topic. (Perhaps I should mention
that there are no current plans to publish this paper in a research journal.)

<a href="mailto:lmccarth@cs.umass.edu">-Lewis McCarthy</a>

P.S. Is the preface on the GAP manual web page somewhere ?