The first version of REDUCE was developed and published by Anthony C. Hearn more than 25 years ago. The starting point was a class of formal computations for problems in high energy physics (Feynman diagrams, cross sections etc.), which are hard and time consuming if done by hand. Although the facilities of the current REDUCE are much more advanced than those of the early versions, the direction towards big formal computations in applied mathematics, physics and engineering has been stable over the years, but with a much broader set of applications.
Like symbolic computation in general, REDUCE has profited by the increasing power of computer architectures and by the information exchange made available by recent network developments. Spearheaded by A.C. Hearn, several groups in different countries take part in the REDUCE development, and the contributions of users have significantly widened the application field.
Today REDUCE can be used with a variety of hardware platforms from the personal computer up to the Cray supercomputer. However, the primary vehicle is the class of advanced UNIX workstations.
Although REDUCE is a mature program system, it is extended and updated on a continuous basis. Since the establishment of the REDUCE Network Library in 1989, users take part in the development, thus reducing the incompatibilities encountered with new system releases.
In July 2004 the version 3.8 of REDUCE was released. Information regarding the available implementations can be obtained from `http://wwww.reduce-algebra.com' or `http://www.zib.de/Symbolik/reduce'.