Mathematica 1.0 (1988)

Physicist and mathematician Stephen Wolfram and Wolfram Research, Champaign, Illinois, introduced Mathematica 1.0, "a computational software program used in scientific, engineering, and mathematical fields and other areas of technical computing" with powerful two dimensional and three dimensional visualization tools.

Mathematica evolved from Symbolic Manipulation Program, usually called SMP, "a computer algebra system designed by Chris A. Cole and Stephen Wolfram at Caltech circa 1979 and initially developed in the Caltech physics department under Wolfram's leadership . . . . It was first sold commercially in 1981 by the Computer Mathematics Corporation of Los Angeles which later became part of Inference Corporation; Inference Corp. further developed the program and marketed it commercially from 1983 to 1988. SMP was essentially Version Zero of the more ambitious Mathematica system.

"SMP was influenced by the earlier computer algebra systems Macsyma (of which Wolfram was a user) and Schoonschip (whose code Wolfram studied)" (Wikipedia article on Symbolic Manipulation Program, accessed 05-16-2009).