Dear GAP Forum,

The GAP Group is delighted to announce the availability of GAP 4 release 3.
This release builds on GAP 4.2 released in 2000, and we recommend all GAP 4
users to upgrade to it.

A detailed list of new features of GAP 4.3 can be found at
http://www.gap-system.org/Releases/NewFeatures4r3.html

In particular, these new features of GAP 4.3 include

* many new algorithms and new mathematical functionality, including
- Dixon's algorithm for constructing representations
- Schur multiplier and Schur Cover for permutation groups are available
- linear groups over rings Z/mZ are available
- the MeatAxe has been extended
- new methods for polycyclic and almost crystallographic groups
- improved handling of finitely presented groups
- improved handling of permutation groups and their homomorphisms

* performance enhancements in many areas, including
- faster arithmetic for matrices and matrix groups over finite fields
- faster methods for large degree permutation groups
- faster solvable quotient and Knuth-Bendix methods
- various improvements in the GAP kernel

* extensions to the data libraries, including
- transitive permutation groups up to degree 30
- irreducible maximal finite integral matrix groups up to degree 31
- character tables

* improvements of various interfaces, including
- help system
- kernel hooks
- packages

* fixes of all known bugs

You can find detailed information about the new version on our World Wide
Web sites and Ftp servers located at

http://www.gap-system.org/
http://www.math.rwth-aachen.de/~GAP/
http://mirrors.ccs.neu.edu/GAP/
ftp://ftp.gap-system.org in directory pub/gap/gap

St Andrews, May 2002                        Steve Linton for The GAP Group



-- 
Steve Linton	School of Computer Science  &
      Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Computational Algebra
	     University of St Andrews 	 Tel   +44 (1334) 463269
http://www-theory.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~sal	 Fax   +44 (1334) 463278