If you tackle real problems with computer algebra you have probably found that some well known systems are too slow, use too much space, crash too often, or have weird limitations built into them. If all you do is make up examples for your undergraduate students, you probably don't need Fermat. If you try to compute the characteristic polynomial of a 400 X 400 matrix over Q , you need Fermat or something like it. In addition, I have striven to make it easy to use. This is a great boon in experiments with matrices.
Extensive facilities exist for saving data to files and reading such data.
Fermat has the ability to be interrupted and then later return to the computation, picking up where it left off. On the Mac side, this is very useful if you are running a long program on your home computer and your five year old daughter wants to use KidPix. To retrieve the two ReadMe files click here and here . The ReadMes contain the latest update information, especially the second one. The first one has some history.