Survey posted 2000-08-30 16:16 by Andy Selle.

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What the heck are these?

Since a number of people have asked and not really received a reply . . . these are all computer programs that do mathematical and/(or?) symbolic calculations. I have Mathcad, have used Mathematica, know about Maple, and have heard of MatLab. I don't know about Derive, but I'm assuming it serves the same basic purpose as the rest. I believe that these programs don't start showing up in classes until you reach college/university level and since so much of the TI stuff around here seems to be based at high school level, I'm not too surprised that people haven't heard of these programs.

The TI-92+ CAS is based on Derive. I think (but i'm not sure) that TI bought the company that created Derive.

-Sean

TI bought Soft Warehouse Inc., the maker of Derive, in August 1999. The TI-92, 89, and 92 Plus CAS's are based on Derive. http://www.ti.com/calc/docs/derive.htm

Actually, TI's 92 FAQ denies that the calculators are based on DERIVE. They were developed independently, although both were created by the same company. I don't think that it's much of an important point, but, if TI sees the need to point it out, so be it.

And yes, TI did purchase the aformentioned company - Soft Warehouse - last year, although that was long after the 89/92+'s release.

Well, if the authors of Derive were involved in the development I think it would be fair to say that the CAS is /based/ on Derive, although it may not /be/ Derive.

Quote from the TI-92 FAQ:
"The computer algebra software in the TI-92 is not DERIVE, in whole or part. It was jointly developed by Texas Instruments and the authors of DERIVE."

ahh.. but according to the derive site on the ti-site (http://www.ti.com/calc/docs/derive.htm) says that the 89/92+ CAS is based on the CAS of DERIVE :
"In addition, the CAS technology in DERIVE is incorporated in the TI-89 and TI-92 Plus handheld products for advanced mathematics and engineering coursework. "

Be incorporated into isn't the same as being based upon.

One example TI89 can and Derive can not is plot of implicite function.

Derive, on the other side can solve X^4+2x^3+2x+1=0
symbolically.

I actually use Scientific Notebook for Diff Eq, but SN is Maple, or rather, it uses it to a great extent. Close enough.

I use Maple; it's super.

I agree :)

I used Maple this morning to plot a direction field for my Math 308 class.

Mathematica is the most fully featured program, but it's the hardest to use. Matlab and Maple are excellent programs, though.

Hi.I just wanted to know where I can find Mathematica information on the web, and about how much does the newest version cost?

www.wolfram.com

About $150 for the student version but well over $1K for the full thing.

--BlueCalx

Heh when I need to do math and I'm at the computer, I just fire up good ole VTI...

I do not use any regularly, but I used Mathematica a number of times and I am very impressed with the program.

Here are my personal experiences with these programs (emphasis on personal)

Derive: never used it, but unless it is significantly better than the TI-AMS, it qualifies for PoS award.

Maple: a student's choice. Easy to use, good at what it does (like homework). A professional's nightmare: slow, weak and ugly. Students who are familiar with Mathematica, usually despise Maple (me for example).

Matlab: Has good numerics, quite fast. Has poor interface IMHO. (my experience with it is limited by 1.5 hours, so don't trust me too much on this one)

MathCAD: somewhat like maple but more professionally oriented. Nice interface, versatile, good symbolics.

Mathematica: in my opinion, better than all packages above put together. Fastest, most powerful, most versatile, most featured, most whatever. Rumors that it is hard to use are only partially true. It is almost impossible to know thousands of things it can do, but all necessary information for solving a particular problem can be found by pressing F1. Student version: $150. Professional version: $1500. Student version has very same capabilities, but prints "Mathematica student version" on the printouts.

Go see Mathematica online manual by clicking the url above

If you're math freak, also visit
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/

i've got a really really really really old version (1.07, copyright 1988) of derive. can't really compare to anything else cuz i've never used them.
well, i used a ti-89 for about a week once. derive seemed easier to use, iirc, and it's a heck of a lot faster.

most of that's probly just a result of hw differences. with a computer you aren't working on a cramped keyboard and a tiny monochrome display. a 400mhz cpu helps, too.

'course this was when it was a dos program designed to run on a 16-bit 20mhz machine.

From what I've read, though, MATLAB is truely a different class of product. It focuses on pure number crunching, while the others are intended for symbolic work.

Maple isn't really much easier to use than mathematica, once you get used to mathematica's weird syntax (e.g., [] for functions). I doubt either one of them is significantly faster than the other for the same operations. And from looking through the help index, maple seems to have just as many strange sounding functions whose names I don't know as mathematica does. I doubt that its base code is really less powerful. What makes mathematica the better choice for professionals is the way it can be extended with modules and even stuff written in c (with mathlink). Look at the page for the Optics add-on, for example (too lazy to find the link).

I have used derive and it truely is a PoS. MathCAD I have never used so I won't comment.

btw, MathWorld at mathworld.wolfram.com is the single greatest mathematics site that I've seen. I've been going there since before it was on the wolfram site, and it's been quite helpful on a number of occasions.

>>I doubt either one of them is significantly faster than the other for the same operations

In Mathematica v4.0 they did not increase functionality too much, but they did a lot of optimizations, so that many functions run up to 100 times faster than those in Mathematica v3.0, making Mathematica not only the most powerful software, but also the fastest one (although there might exist examples where other packages outperform Mathematica).
The only thing I don't like about Mathematica is its built in 3D rendering engine, so I use MathGL3d (see webpage)

Wow... that program looks amazing; thanks for the link. I'm also dissapointed with Mathematica's renderer; it doesn't even let you rotate the images like Maple (V5 at least) does.

Mathworld is beyond description in prose .. THE best maths site on the WWW BUT THE SITE IS FOR --TOTAL-- MATHS GEEKS. My nephew [7th grade] took one look at it and almost burst into tears. If you have an 83 plus mostly because you can’t take a Gameboy to class do yourself a BIG favor and find a more cozy site the Mathworld one has all the sharp edges.