SUI: a system independent user interface for an integrated scientific computing environment

The design and implementation of a Scientific User Interface is presented. Written in the C language, SUI is a window-menu-mouse oriented graphical user interface that is designed to provide a modern and integrated computing environment for scientific work. SUI can serve multiple client systems in parallel including symbolic, numeric, graphics and document formatting systems. SUI achieves hardware and operating system independence as well as network transparency by employing the X11 protocols and achieves client system independence by defining a client-SUI protocol that is simple and effective. Features of SUI includes input editing, history, 2-D mathematical expression display, interactive selection of subexpressions, interactive display and manipulation of 2-D and 3-D plots of mathematical functions, cut and paste with syntax translation, command templates, incremental 2-D display of mathematical input, and interactive configuration. A prototype system demonstration is planned for ISSAC'90