Conference hydra::amiga_v1

743.0. "Maple 4.0 news" by BAGELS::BRANNON (Dave Brannon) Thu Sep 24 1987 21:08

Article 7008 of 7014, Thu 13:26.
Subject: Re: Maple (long!)
From: [email protected] (Rico Mariani)
Path: calgary!alberta!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!clyde!watmath!utgpu!utfyzx!oscvax!rico
Organization: Ontario Science Centre, Toronto
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Date: 17 Sep 87 19:26:20 GMT
Reply-To: [email protected] (Rico Mariani)

In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Richard J Otter) writes:
>
>Has anyone heard of the symbolic mathematics program called Maple ? Apparently,
>its being distributed by the University of Waterloo and is available
>for the Amiga. Is it free like kermit or high priced like Math CAD ?
>It sounds like what I've been waiting for !

I've sure have heard of it, I just finished (about a month ago) porting
Maple 4.0 to the Amiga.

Maple is a product of the Symbolic Computation Group at The University of
Waterloo (of which I am a student).

For those who don't know about Maple or other such languages (e.g.  MACSYMA,
REDUCE, etc.)  Maple is capable of working with arbitrary length integers,
and performing exact rational arithmetic.  In addition to this, Maple
can work with "symbols" to perform operations on algebraic expressions
for instance you could type:

# differentiate x squared with respect to x
>diff(x^2,x);
					2 x

# integrate the previous result wrt x
>int(",x);
					 2
					x

# compute a big number  (720 factorial)
>720!;
		< you get lotsa output >

I could post a sample session if there is interest.

Anyways, Amiga Maple comes on 5 disks

	1  -- executables
	3  -- libraries
	1  -- help files

You can get (for the cost of the media) 5 more disks

	3  -- library sources
	2  -- Maple tests + test results

It is an EXTENSIVE (can you say BIG!) expandable system.  Most of Maple is
written in Maple, it is this portion that you get in the library sources.
You don't get the sources to the kernel.

You need at least 1.5 megabytes of total memory if you want to do meaningful
computations with Maple.  You don't need a hard disk drive (I *ported*
it without using one) but it does make your life easier.  If you don't
have a hard disk drive then 2 floppys are a MUST.  It's not protected so
you can make backups to your hearts delight.  Needless to say if you
install it on your hard drive it will take up a wholesome amount of
space (you have to copy the 5 basic disks to the drive, plus the sources
if you want to modify the libraries as well as doing your own programming). 

I beleive that Fred Walter had the prices right ($580, 1/2 off for educationals
sales) but I'm not sure.  I try to remain ignorant of these things.

Feel free to mail me questions about the Amiga version, if you have questions
about Maple in general you might be better off sending them to:

	[email protected]

If you have very specific questions like "how does the difforms package handle
polynomials whose degree is an unknown" I'll just shrug and pass them along to
someone who knows better...

	-Rico
		rico@oscvax

DISCLAIMER:  The Ontario Science Centre has nothing to do with Maple or my 
	     work with Maple, or this article, or any other article, or the
	     colour of my shoes, or etc.  Leave them alone.
-- 
[NSA food: terrorist, cryptography, DES, drugs, CIA, secret, decode]
[CSIS food: supermailbox, tuna, fiberglass coffins, Mirabel, microfiche]
[Cat food: Nine Lives, Cat Chow, Meow Mix, Crave]

    i have no idea what the real world use of Maple is... but if it
    convinces someone to buy an Amiga, it is worth posting it here.
    
    -dave

    I have a friend who is going to buy a PC compatible.  Of course,
    I've been trying to talk him out of it.  His main use for a computer
    is MathCAD.  Is Maple the same sort of thing?  

    I believe Maple is a program such as those generally described as
    equation solvers.  This month's Byte has a review on Tk! Solver and
    Borland's offering, both for the IBM of course.  They're real time
    savers.

    Maple is availble over the net for VAX usage. There is a notes file for
    it named model MODEL::MAPLE. 

    I've played with TK!Solver on a DG One.  It's a toy compared to
    the description of Maple.  
    
    From my brief exposure to TK!Solver, it couldn't perform any kind of
    integration unless you taught it how to.  You'd have to teach it
    Simpson's Rule, something that can be done on any spreadsheet. 
                                                               
    If someone would port Spice or MATRIXX to the Amiga, you'd see some
    real interest from the engineering community.