Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!uci-ics!ucla-cs!cs.ucla.edu!stiber From: stiber@cs.ucla.edu (Michael D Stiber) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: math software Message-ID: Date: 10 Nov 89 00:39:47 GMT References: <67496@philabs.Philips.Com> <1369@mrsvr.UUCP> Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc Organization: UCLA Machine Perception Laboratory Lines: 30 In-reply-to: hallett@positron.uucp's message of 7 Nov 89 08:23:11 GMT on 7 Nov 89 08:23:11 GMT, hallett@positron.uucp (Jeff Hallett x5163 ) said: >> In article <67496@philabs.Philips.Com> agc@briar.philips.com (Aldo G. Cugnini;6080;2.08d;$0205) writes: >Has anyone used software similar to MathCad on other than a PC? >(MathCad is a PC package which, for example, performs calculations, >does array math such as FFT's, and has graphics (2- and 3-D) capabilities.) >I have used it in the past on a PC, but don't have access to one now. >I understand ILB is available on workstations, but I don't need anything >that powerful, and am already comfortable with MathCad. I'd like to have >these capabilities on VMS or UNIX. Any suggestions? >> Yeah, try Mathematica. It is the Cadillac of math-processing programs >> today. Full symbolic manipulation, numeric, plotting, the works. >> Supports a nice notebook for organizing your stuff. I'm sorry, but Mathematica sucks. We have it on a 5 Meg Mac II, and it crashes frequently. It often refuses to perform various operations, producing indecipherable error messages. A far superior package is Maple, from the University of Waterloo. It has more built-in operations than Mathematica. We have never had any problems with it. It is also programmable, with a Pascal-like syntax (another thing you can't do with Mathematica). Runs on UNIX, I don't know about VMS. There is also supposed to be a Mac version. -- Michael Stiber stiber@cs.ucla.edu UCLA Computer Science Dept. ...{ucbvax,ihpn4}!ucla-cs!stiber Machine Perception Laboratory 3564 Boelter Hall,Los Angeles, CA 90024