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+@c Copyright (C) 1996 John W. Eaton
+@c This is part of the Octave manual.
+@c For copying conditions, see the file gpl.texi.
+
+@node Preface, Copying, Top, Top
+@unnumbered Preface
+@cindex acknowledgements
+@cindex contributors
+@cindex history
+
+Octave was originally intended to be companion software for an
+undergraduate-level textbook on chemical reactor design being written by
+James B. Rawlings of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and John
+G. Ekerdt of the University of Texas.
+
+Clearly, Octave is now much more than just another `courseware' package
+with limited utility beyond the classroom.  Although our initial goals
+were somewhat vague, we knew that we wanted to create something that
+would enable students to solve realistic problems, and that they could
+use for many things other than chemical reactor design problems.
+
+There are those who would say that we should be teaching the students
+Fortran instead, because that is the computer language of engineering,
+but every time we have tried that, the students have spent far too much
+time trying to figure out why their Fortran code crashes and not enough
+time learning about chemical engineering.  With Octave, most students
+pick up the basics quickly, and are using it confidently in just a few
+hours.
+
+Although it was originally intended to be used to teach reactor design,
+it has been used in several other undergraduate and graduate
+courses in the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of
+Texas, and the math department at the University of Texas has been using
+it for teaching differential equations and linear algebra as well.  If
+you find it useful, please let us know.  We are always interested to
+find out how Octave is being used in other places.
+
+Virtually everyone thinks that the name Octave has something to do with
+music, but it is actually the name of a former professor of mine who
+wrote a famous textbook on chemical reaction engineering, and who was
+also well known for his ability to do quick `back of the envelope'
+calculations.  We hope that this software will make it possible for many
+people to do more ambitious computations just as easily.
+
+Everyone is encouraged to share this software with others under the
+terms of the GNU General Public License (@pxref{Copying}) as described
+at the beginning of this manual.  You are also encouraged to help make
+Octave more useful by writing and contributing additional functions for
+it, and by reporting any problems you may have.
+
+Many people have already contributed to Octave's development.  In
+addition to John W. Eaton, the following people have helped write parts
+of Octave or helped out in various other ways.
+
+@c Once lp_solve has been added, don't forget to include the lp_solve
+@c author, and Kantor, for providing an example.
+
+@itemize @bullet
+@item
+Thomas Baier (baier@@ci.tuwien.ac.at) wrote the original versions of
+@code{popen}, @code{pclose}, @code{execute}, @code{sync_system}, and
+@code{async_system}.
+
+@item
+Karl Berry (karl@@cs.umb.edu) wrote the @code{kpathsea} library that
+allows Octave to recursively search directory paths for function and
+script files.
+
+@item
+Georg Beyerle (gbeyerle@@awi-potsdam.de) contributed code to save values
+in @sc{Matlab}'s @file{.mat}-file format, and has provided many useful bug
+reports and suggestions.
+
+@item
+John Campbell (jcc@@bevo.che.wisc.edu) wrote most of the file and
+C-style input and output functions.
+
+@item
+Brian Fox (bfox@@gnu.ai.mit.edu) wrote the @code{readline} library used
+for command history editing, and the portion of this manual that
+documents it.
+
+@item
+A. Scottedward Hodel (scotte@@eng.auburn.edu) contributed a number
+of functions including @code{expm}, @code{qzval}, @code{qzhess},
+@code{syl}, @code{lyap}, and @code{balance}.
+
+@item
+Kurt Hornik (Kurt.Hornik@@ci.tuwien.ac.at) provided the @code{corrcoef},
+@code{cov}, @code{fftconv}, @code{fftfilt}, @code{gcd}, @code{lcd},
+@code{kurtosis}, @code{null}, @code{orth}, @code{poly}, @code{polyfit},
+@code{roots}, and @code{skewness} functions, supplied documentation for
+these and numerous other functions, rewrote the Emacs mode for editing 
+Octave code and provided its documentation, and has helped tremendously
+with testing.  He has also been a constant source of new ideas for
+improving Octave.
+ 
+@item
+Phil Johnson (johnsonp@@nicco.sscnet.ucla.edu) has helped to make Linux
+releases available.
+
+@item
+Friedrich Leisch (leisch@@ci.tuwien.ac.at) provided the
+@code{mahalanobis} function.
+
+@item
+Ken Neighbors (wkn@@leland.stanford.edu) has provided many useful bug
+reports and comments on @sc{Matlab} compatibility.
+
+@item
+Rick Niles (niles@@axp745.gsfc.nasa.gov) rewrote Octave's plotting
+functions to add line styles and the ability to specify an unlimited
+number of lines in a single call.  He also continues to track down
+odd incompatibilities and bugs.
+
+@item
+Mark Odegard (meo@@sugarland.unocal.com) provided the initial
+implementation of @code{fread}, @code{fwrite}, @code{feof}, and
+@code{ferror}.
+
+@item
+Tony Richardson (tony@@guts.biomed.uakron.edu) wrote Octave's image
+processing functions as well as most of the original polynomial
+functions.
+
+@item
+R. Bruce Tenison (Bruce.Tenison@@eng.auburn.edu) wrote the @code{hess} and
+@code{schur} functions.
+
+@item
+Teresa Twaroch (twaroch@@ci.tuwien.ac.at) provided the functions
+@code{gls} and @code{ols}.
+
+@item
+Andreas Weingessel (Andreas.Weingessel@@ci.tuwien.ac.at) wrote the
+audio functions @code{lin2mu}, @code{loadaudio}, @code{mu2lin},
+@code{playaudio}, @code{record}, @code{saveaudio}, and @code{setaudio}.
+
+@item
+Fook Fah Yap (ffy@@eng.cam.ac.uk) provided the @code{fft} and
+@code{ifft} functions and valuable bug reports for early versions.
+@end itemize
+
+Special thanks to the following people and organizations for
+supporting the development of Octave:
+
+@itemize @bullet
+@item
+Digital Equipment Corporation, for an equipment grant as part of their
+External Research Program.
+
+@item
+Sun Microsystems, Inc., for an Academic Equipment grant.
+
+@item
+International Business Machines, Inc., for providing equipment as part
+of a grant to the University of Texas College of Engineering.
+
+@item
+Texaco Chemical Company, for providing funding to continue the
+development of this software.
+
+@item
+The University of Texas College of Engineering, for providing a
+Challenge for Excellence Research Supplement, and for providing an
+Academic Development Funds grant.
+
+@item
+The State of Texas, for providing funding through the Texas
+Advanced Technology Program under Grant No. 003658-078.
+
+@item
+Noel Bell, Senior Engineer, Texaco Chemical Company, Austin Texas.
+
+@item
+James B. Rawlings, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
+Department of Chemical Engineering.
+
+@item
+Richard Stallman, for writing GNU.
+@end itemize
+
+Portions of this document have been adapted from the @code{gawk},
+@code{readline}, @code{gcc}, and C library manuals, published by the Free
+Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA.
+
+This project would not have been possible without the GNU software used
+in and used to produce Octave.