Mathcad 13 - Opinions Please

[fel3]

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

 

[IRstuff]

I would go read the postings on the Mathcad collaboratory:

http://collab.mathsoft.com/~Mathcad2000

M13 is a definite improvement over M12.

Copy protection is here to stay, in one form or another.



TTFN

 

[PEinc]

Just installed MathCad 13 update today. You can install it on only 2 computers.

 

[IFRs]

I got it, I like it. I uninstalled 12 and 11.

 

[Yavoran]

It is Much Much beter than v12 or 11.

Take it!
Those people there are geting beter and beter.
Y

 

[zdas04]

I'm sticking with v11 until they come up with a version that is enough better than v11 to be worth the risks of repeating the fiasco of v12. I dutifully paid MathSoft their pieces of silver for every release from v4 to v12 and in point of fact I don't use many of the features that have been added since v4. No one has said that it is substantially better than v11 (just not broken like v12), so without a "gee whiz" feature I'm passing.

David

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

http://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

 

[swertel]

David,

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

 

[stanier]

The cost of software is but a small component of the investment in time and reliability. I have MAthcad 13 and it is more stable than Mathcad12 but so is rocking horse.I updated only to be on par with my clients. I would seriously look at going back to TK Solver next time around. It is more intuitive than Mathcad and easier to use by far. From the work you describe it would suit you more.

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.

 

[PNachtwey]

I use mathcad all the time. I upgraded 11 to 12. Both had too many bugs and crashes. What really upsets me is that they want me to buy support to report a bug or suggest an improvement. I paid for a working version of Mathcad 11 and 12. Not a buggy version. Mathsoft should have patches for versions 11 and 12 just like Microsoft has free updates to WIN98, WIN2K and WIN XP.

What I need is the symbollic processing. I am thinking of changing to Maple. Mathsoft has lost my trust.

 

[IRstuff]

Have you updated Mathcad from the download site?

TTFN

 

[PNachtwey]

Yes, my Mathcad 12 crashed again yesterday. I get these internal errors and others that says it must exit. There is no error log or reporting. I an a C or C++ programmer. Most programs want to jump to the debugger when an error occurs or do some sort of dump. I know this can be done because we do it for our own products. This means that there is nothing to send to Mathsoft so they can fix their problems. It is like they just don't care. I can't trust people like that.

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.

 

[IRstuff]

I would suggest going to the Mathcad collaboratory site. Much more specific information there:

http://collab.mathsoft.com/~Mathcad2000

TTFN

 

[stanier]

Now PTC have bought Mathsoft it may pay to upgrade once to Mathcad 13 and then see what the new owner brings.

 

[CRG]

I just purchased Version 13 upgrade from 2001i. It doesn’t install properly. I requested a list of conflicting programs, and hardware from the folks at MathSoft so I can determine if Version 13 will run on my machine. After reading some of the responses and stated problems in this forum, I am already concerned about spending $200 + dollars for a problematic installation. This is troubling because the software is available from the Asian and Russian black markets for around $10-$20 with all of MathSoft’s installation security features removed. I don’t buy software on the black market; however, I wonder just what MathSoft thinks they are gaining with their problematic security/limited-copy installations. Looks like I might be keeping my version 2001i unless they can provide prompt service to resolve my problem. If the installation problem is not an easy fix, I hope getting a refund, after returning the software, is not a hassle.

 

[PEinc]

I also had a problem installing Ver. 13. I called MathSoft and they walked me through it. Since then, no problems.

 

[jghrist]

I also had no problem installing Ver. 13. I installed on 2 computers, but then later my hard drive crashed on my laptop. Mathsoft was very cooperative in getting the codes to me to allow installing on the new hard drive, which was initially detected as a 3rd computer.

 

[Bung]

I like the look of the new version of Maple - Maple 10. Just finished a 30-day trial. The interface is now quite similar to Mathcad, and it seems to have a few nice things in addition to make it more useable - and I didn't think that would be too easy, given the ease of use of Mathcad. BUT Maple 10 also uses FlexLM for licence management, so tha could still give some problems. The version of Mathcad I use at work (12) has been out of commission for several weks now, causing much irritation, due to a disagreement about licencing issues (they wanted to fix the problem by going to 13). It seems that a corporate licence has to sit on a server with a fixed IP address - at least, that's the story as it was when it filtered down to me.

Bung

Bung
Life is non-linear...