| Software | Non-academic Pricing | OS | Notes | Trial or Demo | Concept, Released |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mathcad (PTC) | $1,195 | Windows | Workbook-ish, Not really actively updated since PTC bought MathWorks in 2006. | 30 day trial form | 1986 |
| Maple | $1,895 | All | HW dongle? Bought by Japanese company? | Trial form | 1980 |
| Mathematica (Wolfram) | $295 Home $2,495 Pro |
All | 15 day trial form | 1988 | |
| MATLAB | $2,000 est. | All (Java) | API-ish | Trial Form | 70′s, 1984 |
| TK Solver (Hearne) | $400 Standard $600 Premium/Excel |
Windows | Demo | 70′s, 1982 | |
| FreeMat | Free (GPL2) | All | Clone of MATLAB and some IDL, one guy effort mainly. | Free | 2006 |
| Maxima (Macsyma) | Free (GPL2) | All (Lisp) | Free | 1968,1982 | |
| Octave | Free (GPL2) | All | Clone of MATLAB | Free | 1988,1993 |
| R | Free (GPL2) | All | Oriented towards statistics | Free | 1997 |
| SciLab | Free (CeCILL/GPL2ish) | All | French Clone of MATLAB | Free | 80′s, 1994 |
OS = ‘All’ means runs on Linux, Mac and Windows. Some products also support Solaris.
I actually used the first versions of most of these products. Time flies. Hard to believe they cost two grand a pop now.
There’s a lot of choices. The best advice I’ve seen is to use the same ones that your class or office is using.
Even though Mathcad is a bit neglected these days, a lot of users love it’s interactivity and ready-for-print workbook appearance, so at least try it out.
The University of Waterloo started the Maple project over 20 years ago because they did not want to pay for high-end workstations to run Macsyma. I imagine that the French at Inria also had price in mind when they started the SciLab project.
To install the free GPL products on Mac OS X using MacPorts, just type:
sudo port install maxima octave r
Maxima Demo commands:
$ maxima
(%i1) integrate(4*sqrt(1-(x^2)),x,0,1);
(%o1) %pi
(%o2) ^D
Octave and SciLab Demo commands:
$ octave (or scilab)
octave:1> x = (0:90)
octave:2> plot(x);
octave:3> quit
R Demo commands:
$ r
> demo()
> demo(graphics)
> q()
Symbolic Mathematics Using Maxima
wikipedia: TK Solver, Mathcad, MATLAB, Mathematica, Maple
wikipedia: List of numerical analysis software
