Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
(OP)
Greetings from Central CA:
I just received a mailing from Mathsoft offering to upgrade my Mathcad 8 (yes, I know: stoneage) to Mathcad 13 plus a tool to work with Excel for a package price of under $300. Mcad 8 does most of what I need, but several features have been added over the years that I could use, though I am not desperate for them. I started with Mcad 3 and upgraded to 4, 5, 6, 7, and finally 8. The more recent upgrades up to 12 did not excite me, especially after reading all the horor stories about Mcad 12. Also, I couldn't justify the price. I remember doing most of my earlier upgrades for $49.
I use Mcad on an irregular basis: as often as several times a week, and as little as every couple of months. Most of what I do is solve design problems in civil engineering, and most of the math is algebra, with some trig and even less calculus and matrices. I also do very little symbolic math, though it does come up from time to time. The main reason I am thinking of upgrading is that I don't want to fall too far behind: the price for a new version has risen above the level I can justify for my work and there will eventually be a limit to my ability to upgrade from such an old version.
What I really want to know is if Mcad 13 is stable (unlike what I heard about Mcad 12) and if the Mcad 12 copy protection method has been abandoned/fixed. Overall, what are your opinions about Mcad 13?
Thanks in advance,
Fred
I just received a mailing from Mathsoft offering to upgrade my Mathcad 8 (yes, I know: stoneage) to Mathcad 13 plus a tool to work with Excel for a package price of under $300. Mcad 8 does most of what I need, but several features have been added over the years that I could use, though I am not desperate for them. I started with Mcad 3 and upgraded to 4, 5, 6, 7, and finally 8. The more recent upgrades up to 12 did not excite me, especially after reading all the horor stories about Mcad 12. Also, I couldn't justify the price. I remember doing most of my earlier upgrades for $49.
I use Mcad on an irregular basis: as often as several times a week, and as little as every couple of months. Most of what I do is solve design problems in civil engineering, and most of the math is algebra, with some trig and even less calculus and matrices. I also do very little symbolic math, though it does come up from time to time. The main reason I am thinking of upgrading is that I don't want to fall too far behind: the price for a new version has risen above the level I can justify for my work and there will eventually be a limit to my ability to upgrade from such an old version.
What I really want to know is if Mcad 13 is stable (unlike what I heard about Mcad 12) and if the Mcad 12 copy protection method has been abandoned/fixed. Overall, what are your opinions about Mcad 13?
Thanks in advance,
Fred
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
http://collab.mathsoft.com/~Mathcad2000
M13 is a definite improvement over M12.
Copy protection is here to stay, in one form or another.
TTFN
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
Take it!
Those people there are geting beter and beter.
Y
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
David
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
www.muleshoe-eng.com
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.
The harder I work, the luckier I seem
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
That's pretty much my opinion as well. But I do think that v13 is worth the upgrade from our v7 licenses, if anyone is comparing those.
--Scott
For some pleasure reading, try FAQ731-376
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
I dont like the software protection system. It doesnt protect piracy as you can still buy the software in Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, over the net etc for a few bucks. A bit like the locks on your front door , keeps the honest people from doing something they wouldnt do anyhow.
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
What I need is the symbollic processing. I am thinking of changing to Maple. Mathsoft has lost my trust.
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
TTFN
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
Other complaints.
1. Whenever solving it will return results like (-a+b)/(-c+d) instead of ( b-a )/(d-c). I know the answer are the same but the equations do look like expect.
2. There is no NUM( ) and DEN( ) function. I often need to find the poles and zeros of and equation. At this time there is no automatic way to do it. One must cut and paste the numerator and denominator manualy and then find the roots.
3. I must alwasy be tuning off automatic calculations. I think it is the automatic calculations that cause many of the crashes while trying to calculate when editiing.
4.Formating, html and rtf doesn't work right. I still have equation where they shouldn't be when printing.
5. Many of my systems of non-linear equations differential equation work sheets did work under mathcad 12. I haven't had time to re-write them. We bough another simulator to do these types of problems.
6 THere is no exp(-A*t) function where A is a function. This is also used in control theory.
7 changes to included .mcd files are not recognized until the main work sheet is reloaded.
8 editiing is still strange. I can solve for s in a transfer function. The resulting equation is correct but perhaps displayed in a way that looks bad. If I edit the results the editor may or may not work. If I copy the result to a space below I can the edit withoug problems.
I would like to know if Mathcad 13 has fixed these problems.
The only thing I use in Mathcad 12 that Mathcad 11 doesn have is graphing with the second scale. For that I lost my ability to do my non-linear simulations. That wasn't a good upgrade. This thread is of interest to me because I can find out if these problems have been fixed and these features have been added.
I can't see paying money if they haven't. Most of all it is their attitude change from Mathcad 11 on. Since I have already bought another simulator the need to upgrade is much less.
:(
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
http://collab.mathsoft.com/~Mathcad2000
TTFN
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
RE: Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please
Bung
Bung
Life is non-linear...