From: sat@nut.tridom.com (Stephen Thomas)
Subject: Re: Seeking Opinions on Mathcad
Reply-To: sat@eng.tridom.com
Organization: AT&T Tridom
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 14:03:12 GMT

In article Bqq@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu, mfprf@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Paul R. Falzer) writes:

>I just received an offer from the company to purchase the Mathcad
>program for about $80 and would appreciate your assistance in
>deciding whether I should buy it at that price.  

Since some of my comments may seem a bit disparaging, let me start off
by saying that I love MathCad, and couldn't work without it. $80 is
a pretty good price too. The best I've seen is a special $99 offer
to Engineering professionals. The student price is around $125. BTW,
make sure you're getting version 3.1 for Windows and not an out of
date version.

>My needs are for an equation editor that is more powerful and
>flexible than AmiPro's 

I can't speak for AmiPro, but for pure documentation purposes, I've
found that MathCad isn't as powerful as WordPerfect for Windows. This
is completely understandable, though, as WPfW doesn't care about the
content of your equations, while MathCad will only let you write an
equation that it can understand.

>and for a statistical analysis tool that
>would give me the flexibility to write linear models and analyze
>data accordingly.  My first question is, how well would Mathcad
>meet my needs relative to other programs on themarket--especially
>in comparison with other stat packages such as SPSS?

Statistical analysis is not a particulary strong suit of MathCad.
You'd be much better off with a package designed for statistical
analysis.

>Second, Mathcad seems to resemble an electronic chalkboard. 

This is exactly true.

>Besides its working with mathematical equations and models, what
>(if any) are its other capabilities?  For instance, does it have
>an drawing, charting, or graphing capabilities?

Drawing and charting: No. Graphing: Yes. The graphing stuff has a
different focus than traditional presentation packages, though. It's
designed more to graph a function (or functions), rather than a
collection of data points. The 3D surface plotting is a bit
primitive.

>How effectively does it perform word processing and layout functions?

It seems to do surprisingly well at layout. You just drag things
around. I wouldn't try to use it as a serious WP though. It supports
fonts and stuff, but not simple WP things like justification or
spell checking.

>Third, what else should I know about the program's overall and
>specific strengths and weaknesses?

I think that, by far, its biggest strength is its ease of use. You
just enter an equation exactly like you're used to seeing it. You
can do sophisticated Mathematical stuff (including symbolic), without
having to learn a new programming language. When compared to other
math programs (e.g. Mathematica), its not nearly as powerful, but 
I find it tons easier to use. If you're familiar with HP calculators,
I'd say its roughly the equivalent of an HP48SX, but much easier to
use. [HP48SX owners, no flames please; I have one and love it too.]

>I am wondering about the
>following items, among others: how fast is the program compared
>with other significant applications?

I can't give you any hard facts, but I almost never have to wait for
it to do anything (redraw the screen, calculate a graph, ...) on
my 386SX-16.  

>How well does it work with other programs?

My biggest complaint is that it only imports graphics as bitmaps, not
metafiles or as an OLE client.

>How effectively does it function as an OLE server?  

I've never used this feature. (Maybe when WPfW 5.2 comes out, wish, wish, ...)

>What's its memory and system resource demands? 

Light to moderate for a real Windows application.

>Thanks in advance for your comments and opinions.

Hope this helps. As a final suggestion, if you're not in a hurry, call MathSoft
(800-628-4223) and get their free demo. It's almost fully functional. You're 
limited to one (non-resizable) window, you can't save your work, and it doesn't 
have the symbolic manipulation stuff. Otherwise, the demo is fully functional.
I have a personal copy of MathCad (Windows) at home, and I'm trying to talk 
the folks here at work into getting one for our sparcs. To help convince them, 
I ordered the demo. While the bean counters go through the purchase cycle, I'm
happily using the demo version as a (much improved)
replacement for calctool. If you've got access to a space, email me. I'll be
happy to email you a copy of the sparc demo. (The sample disk said to distribute
freely.)

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Stephen Thomas   AT&T Tridom   (404-514-3522)
email: sat@eng.tridom.com, attmail!tridom!sat