Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pasteur!cory.Berkeley.EDU!glen From: glen@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Glen Rosendale) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: TK/Solver! as a Technical Tool: What Happened To It? (long) Summary: update available soon Keywords: tk/solver! equation solver Message-ID: <11430@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 25 Mar 89 23:29:46 GMT References: <81@sierra.stanford.edu> Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU Reply-To: glen@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Glen Rosendale) Distribution: comp.sys.mac, comp.edu Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 69 In article <81@sierra.stanford.edu> siegman@sierra.UUCP (Anthony E. Siegman) writes: > >In Germany in 1984 a colleague showed me a version of "TK/Solver!" >(sp?) for the Macintosh which ran on a 512K Fat Mac, and impressed >me very much. You typed all the equations for a given problem into >an Equation Window. These did not have to be simple assignment >statements, or be entered in any special order; you could type >equations like > > sin(2*pi*x+theta) + c = a*x^2 + b*y^2 > >with functions and variables on both sides of the = sign. [ description of TK/Solver, Eureka deleted ] >are becoming available now, though Mathematica is very much more >expensive and requires a fully loaded Mac II. But why did >TK/Solver! or some similar program for the Mac never take off the >way spreadsheets did? Are there just a lot more business and >financial spreadsheet customers than scientific and engineering >customers out there? Or was it just a fluke that this idea did not >get picked up by others and spread more widely? Even with >Mathematica today, I'll still like to have a small, simple, >inexpensive TK/Solver! descendent to run on my Mac Plus. What >happened? > >-------- TK!Solver was a nice program for the mac, but departed rather severely from the Apple interface guidelines and seemed to suffer as a result. I bought it at closeout prices and used it occasionally, although it is showing its age. The product has since been bought by a new company which is about to release an updated version; in fact they have versions for IBM, Mac, Sun, and Vaxen, as well as libraries of "SolverPacks" for specific disciplines. The company is: Universal Technical Systems, Inc. 1220 Rock St. Rockford, Illinois 61101 USA (815) 963-2220 and in Europe: Universal Technical Software (UK) Ltd. TSL House, Freebournes Court Newland Street, Witham, Essex CM8 2BL United Kingdom Phone: (0376)500035 The standard price for the Mac version is $395, although there is an upgrade price for previous owners ($200) and an educational discount of a flat %40 (nice!) which also applies to the upgrade price. There is also a "miniTK demo version" for $20. I haven't received my copy yet (supposed to ship in March) and when I do I'll post some conclusions if anybody's interested. About Eureka: I bought it because TK!Solver didn't have complex number capability, but it never lived up to its promise. It was quirky and not very "pretty", and Apple's System >= 6.0 caused it to bomb. I complained about this to Borland about a year ago (and again last month) and I just received version 1.01; identical to 1.0 except it works under the new System software. Don't know why it took a year to fix... Anyway, I hope TK!Solver does what I need, because Eureka's not too great a product and I need a good equation solver. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Glen Rosendale | UC Berkeley | glen@cory.berkeley.edu | | ++++++++++++++ | =========== | ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------