Talk:Mathcad

History section

A "history" section may be needed, including listing the version by date. File Not Found 02:31, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I was looking for this and could only find the following sources [1][2][3][4][5] So here is a start at making a history of the versions:

Mathsoft produced

Version 1.xx releases

• 1986 Initial version 1.0 for DOS

Version 2.xx releases

• 1990 Mathcad 2.0 for DOS
• 19?? Mathcad 2.06 for Macintosh
• 1989 Mathcad 2.52 for DOS

Version 3.xx releases

• 1991 Mathcad 3.0 for Microsoft Windows
• 1992 Mathcad 3.1 (slow and buggy)

Version 4.xx releases

• 1993 Mathcad 4.0

Version 5.xx releases

• 1994 Mathcad 5.0 and Mathcad PLUS 5.0
• 1994 Discontinued Mac version (note:Mathcad was ported to the MAC and to 6 unix platforms)

Version 6.xx releases

• 1995 Mathsoft announces re-entry into Mac market with Mathcad/Mac
• 1995 Mathcad PLUS 6.0 for Windows
• 1996 Mathcad Plus 6.0 for Macintosh

Version 7.xx releases

1997 Mathcad 7 Professional for Windows 95/NT 1997 Mathcad 7 Treasury

Version 8.xx releases

• 22 Sep 1999 Mathcad 2000 Professional / Standard[6][7]

Version 9.xx releases

• 29 Nov 2001 Mathcad 2001 Professional / Standard [8]

Version 10.xx releases

Version 11.xx releases

Version 12.xx releases

Version 13.xx releases (first release to need the .NET Framework 1.1. )

PTC (purchase Mathcad in 2006)

Version 14.xx releases (required the .NET Framework 2.0.)

• 2006? Mathcad 14.0 (first release by PTC since company acquisition

Version 15.xx releases

• March 2010 Mathcad 15.0 (M030)[9] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.237.154.43 (talk) 13:09, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Marketing tone

This article is a bit too purple and advertising. Could someone edit it to be more professional (less marketing) and spell out history, theory, strengths, weaknesses, alternatives? 131.151.44.151 21:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Look the Ukrainian version. Maybe, somebody will translate?--Leon II 18:38, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. There are serious issues with, long standing bugs and crashes with the product that PTC does not deal with. Also, PTC is not the original developer of the software. That needs to be expanded somehow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.96.155 (talk) 23:33, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

a Waterloo Maple component ?

My copy of V7 pro has a whole directory of 'maple' stuff (and without that, it doesn't do computer algebra - not under wine anyway :-)... and the bottom of the box says 'MKM (Mathsoft Kernel Maple) copyright 1994 Waterloo Maple Software' Linuxlad 11:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Criticism

a) the proprietary file format, especially up to Mathcat 2001i. From my point of view, even the turn to an XML format did not change much. The same situation like with Labview. b) the need for activation. Mathcad 2001i is the LAST version of Mathcad which can be freely installed and used. hemmerling 16:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

MathCAD 11.0, 12.0, 13.0, and 14.0 had faulty implementations of the rref algorithm that frequently miscalculated the reduced row echelon form of complex matrices. MathCAD 13.0 and 14.0 (and probably the earlier versions) had an error with symbolic vector cross product. Specifically, in a MathCAD document, the expression ( a + b ) × c {\displaystyle (a+b)\times c}

would be incorrectly "simplified" to the expression

a + b × c {\displaystyle a+b\times c} .

That is, to the user, the parentheses merely "disappeared". If the vectors a , b , c {\displaystyle a,b,c} were not previously provided values in the form of three-tuples of numbers, then this amounted to a vector algebra error, failing to properly apply distributivity of vector cross product over vector addition. On the other hand, if the vectors had been assigned values, then both of the above expressions would reduce to the same value, as long as the second expression had been copied and pasted from the "simplified" result of the former expression, but if the user typed in the second expression, then its value as a specific three-tuple would be computed correctly.[1] MathCAD 15.0 erroneously computes some integrals.[1]

Matt Insall (talk) 18:51, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Please read WP:Talk page guidelines, which start:

The purpose of an article's talk page ... is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or WikiProject. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject. ... discussion should be directed solely toward the improvement of the encyclopedia.

It's not clear to me how the above material is directed toward the improvement of the encyclopedia.

Many systems have bugs, even longstanding bugs. That in itself is not a notable fact. It's only if there are reliable sources saying that some software product is notoriously unreliable that we can report that. Can you find articles in the trade press singling out Mathcad for particularly poor quality? --Macrakis (talk) 20:47, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

References

Free Software Alternatives

Can anyone provide any free software alternatives to MatchCad, that have a similar feature set and that are like OpenOffice.org is to Microsoft Office? -Mardus 14:56, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how to properly add the following information to the article but I think the inclusion of Smath and RedCrab Calcualtor is important and not just because they are free. They offer the same interface for Calculation Management and Documentation without complex workarounds and having to use programing notation for the equations. Mathcad has been unique in offering a whiteboard interface using standard mathematical notation. This interface allows text and diagrams to be inserted into the document to work alongside the equations. I have found only 2 other freeware programs that offer this functionality. SMath, which is in the the early stages of development but offers full mathematical functionality. Red Crab Calculator from redchillicrab.com. While it is a nicely polished program, it does not offer all the complex capabilities of Mathcad and SMath. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.242.20.126 (talk) 22:41, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Look at PARI/GP, Maxima, and Yacas. See also List of computer algebra systems.--209.208.77.219 03:32, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Look at scilab.

Solve Blocks -- one of MathCAD's very beneficial features

MathCAD has a feature known as solve blocks. The structure is very simple: Given ... variable-array:=minerr(variable-array) In short, and in English, "Given that I want my utopian dreamworld to be like this, please vary variables a,b,c,... until you get as close as you can to making my dreamworld come true." In less poetic language, yes this is linear programming. But such a feature was not mentioned in the article. Moreover, YOU don't have to figure out how to do linear programming, the algorithm (and syntax) is already built in.

But besides linear programming as just another feature to list, the immense scope of MathCAD's minerr solve blocks deserves mention. Absolutely ANY SET OF DESIRES WHATSOEVER -- so long as they are mathematically expressible -- can form a solve block. Great for mathematical modeling -- yes very definitely. But just to show how absolutely general the solve block is, I wanted to know how much I used each of my 9 or so lenses for my Canon SLR. I knew I used my two 24mm lenses about 3.5 times as much as my 28mm, the Phoenix 24 twice as much as my Canon 24 (because of its closer focus) and so on and so on and so on. So I said it all, along with the sum being 100% and had MathCAD solve it. Then I did the slight renormalization from the solution adding up to 99.2%. But the point is ANYTHING is ABSOLUTELY EASILY minerr solve block solvable in MathCAD. Literally as easy as typing the word "Given" then typing what you wish to be then names for the few things you were willing to vary and then those variables after the minerr( .

But yet another use of the minerr solve block is to compute inverse functions. This is trickier, but is actually very little typing. What you end up doing is DEFINING a function (the inverse function) as a solve block. Thus the inverse function is like an implicit "goto subroutine" statement. Which means if you plot that inverse function for 1,000 points, the minerr solve block "subroutine" will have to run 1,000 times.

Anyway, not having discussion of solve blocks is a serious omission and misses an important part of the MathCAD character. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.196.144.16 (talk) 21:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

An excellent point. I would add that Mathcad has several "ending functions" that can be used in solve blocks. minerr is just one of those functions. Personally, I use the "odesolve" and "find" functions quite a bit. As to the "serious omission" in the Mathcad article, be bold (WP:BB), and write something! Noca2plus (talk) 22:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Memory Management / Internal Errors

I removed the following good-faith edit[10] by 81.138.36.173 (talk):

Although powerful, Mathcad suffers memory management issues as memory, once allocated, is never de-allocated. The consequences of this are that sometimes handling of very large matrices (e.g. high frequency time-series datasets) can cause non-descript errors, for example "An internal error has occured" after which there may be no observed effect through to abortion of the program without option to save or recover work. Some users of Mathcad have deemed such unexplained fatal crashes 'Mathcadisms'. [11]

In my experience, I've also seen problems with Mathcad de-allocating memory (especially after program errors). However, it seems unlikely that Mathcad lacks all ability to de-allocate memory. I think the article should point out Mathcad's apparently poor memory management, but that needs to be backed up with a verifiable citation (WP:V) and not original research (WP:NOR). The offerred reference (a group of forum postings -- WP:SPS) certainly documents that "internal errors" occur. But none of the postings suggested that this was due to memory management issues, or that the internal errors resulted in loss of data. Quite the opposite, several posters indicated that they did have the opportunity to save their work after the error. Futher, no posts mention the neologism "Mathcadisms". Noca2plus (talk) 19:27, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Which employee of PTC is doing the updates to this page?

The contoversy section of this page has been continually altered so that it no longer reflects the facts. For instance, the single user license includes the Extension pack (or at least it has since PTC took over). I feel that it is likely only a PTC employee could be watering this section down to the point they becoming false. I feel that these net result of these changes are biased view of the events and reasons for the hostility towards PTC.

The controversy (which was given the appropriate citations in my first entry), was is not a "feature" issue, but is a "bug" issue. That is, single license users are primarily the ones finding and logging bugs with the software, yet bug fixes are not being provided to these same single license users. That is - the current version is known to have bugs, and these bugs have fixes, which are only available to maintenance contract customers. Even if a new user buys the current version, they only have access to the initial release version, with no access to current bug fixes available at the time of purchase.

It is this supply of knowingly buggy software and making users pay more to recieve fixes that has been cited as unethical and unacceptable. This has nothing to do with features (new abilities and options). Whether this is standard PTC policy or not, it is in breach of warrantee provisions throughout the world.

I am not going to update this again, as I felt that my original entry was well researched and correct (including the prices I quoted which I have also noticed have been changed). Also, the "unknown" PTC ??employee?? will probably just change it back gain.

If someone is going to update this - they might like to add that Maple has been offering MathCad users the option to upgrade from MathCad to Maple at the same price as a Maple upgrade.

What's the normal course of action if a user believes that changes are biased or incorrect? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pleitch (talk • contribs) 05:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Pleitch, and welcome back to the Mathcad page. I appreciate your previous efforts to update this page, and I hope you'll continue to try and improve it. From what I read in your post, you may not know that the entire edit history of this page is available here. And similarly, you can find your two previous edits of this page here. So, if you truly want to identify the editor that watered down the Mathcad#Controversy section, I'm sure you could find them on the history page. Further, if you want to "reinstate" your original edits, that's fairly simple to do as well: just copy the section text from your earlier edit and paste it over the current section. If you want some help with this, post a note on my talk page. But I also caution you to assume good faith. There may be a PTC employee that is working hard to cover up PTC's misdirected upgrade policies, but then again, there may not. Be careful to not start making personal attacks. The goal here is to make a well-sourced article written from a neutral point of view. Typically, the consensus process deals with disagreements over content. If you're truly concerned with a fellow editor's conflict of interest, you should read WP:COI. Noca2plus (talk) 17:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you for this information. I see now that rather than one person watering down the article, it has been more like a couple of people making “well intentioned” small changes that has changed the meaning - "Chinese whisper" style. When I have some time I will update the section to ensure that the facts are still clear and correct. I am still new to the Wiki world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.9.17.46 (talk) 00:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

prime 2

I think there is prime 2 now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.92.92.139 (talk) 01:17, 27 March 2012 (UTC)