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Cornel19-Tanzanite
19-Tanzanite
February 24, 2021
Question

Mathcad 15 - Future Use

  • February 24, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 7887 views

Hello Dear Friends,

1) How long or how many years from now do you think that Mathcad 15 (not Mathcad Prime) can still be used?
2) And how long do you think that Mathcad Prime will outperform Mathcad 15 in terms of functionality and performance?

Thank you.
Best regards.

    2 replies

    L
    LucMeekes23-Emerald IV
    23-Emerald IV
    February 24, 2021

    1) Prime 7 is planned to be able to convert without requiring a simultaneously installed Mathcad 15. If PTC delivers this with Prime 7 (History has shown that PTC does not always deliver what they plan), they could stop delivering and supporting Mathcad 15 very soon after Prime 7 release (Which is planned for March 2, that is next tuesday!).

    2) Prime outperform Mathcad 15 ? Considering the rate of Primes's 'development' over the past 10 years, it will take PTC about 100 years to have Prime match Mathcad 15 in every respect. But note that Prime does have some features that Mathcad 15 doesn't and that were wanted for many years. Those features are:

    Mixed units in arrays,

    No static unit checking.

     

    Luc

      F
      Fred_Kohlhepp23-Emerald I
      23-Emerald I
      February 25, 2021

      I believe PTC will probably stop selling Mathcad 15 and all versions of Prime except version 7 after 2021.

        V
        VladimirN24-Ruby III
        24-Ruby III
        February 25, 2021

        Effective January 1, 2022, the only version of Mathcad available for subscription will be Mathcad Prime 7 and future versions of Prime.

        W
        Werner_E25-Diamond I
        25-Diamond I
        February 24, 2021
        @Cornel wrote:

        Hello Dear Friends,

        1) How long or how many years from now do you think that Mathcad 15 (not Mathcad Prime) can still be used?
        2) And how long do you think that Mathcad Prime will outperform Mathcad 15 in terms of functionality and performance?

        Thank you.
        Best regards.

        ad 1)

        That depends. If you are lucky and have acquired a perpetual license in the good old days, you may run Mathcad 15 as long as new OS releases will support it or as long as an old computer with an old operating system will make it. Luc still happily runs MC11. You may also try to transfer MC15 to a virtual machine as long as that is still possible.

        If you don't have a perpetual license, then the end of MC15 is soon, I guess. You may be given the option to renew the license for a few years, but it will probably be in five years at the latest that you will not be able to use MC15 any more.

         

        ad 2)

        I also don't think that Prime ever will live up to real Mathcad, but when in a few years there only are a handful of people using MC15 and knowing about its potential - who cares. PTC didn't care right from the start although they  promised that Prime 3 would have the full functionality of Mathcad 14 (an I guess this wasn't meant as a joke ...)
        And yes, Prime sure has a few features I like and would have liked to see in real Mathcad, too. Apart from the ones mentioned by Luc this are so simple ones like the handling of the input of matrices (on the other hand scrolling in matrices is implemented in a horrible way) and the Ctrl-J feature when writing programs.

        But the list of missing features in Prime and badly implemented features is almost endless.

        But sooner or later the question of whether Prime is as good or even better than Mathcad will no longer arise. It will be about whether Prime is a useful tool (maybe when working with Creo) and / or whether it can keep up with the competition. The latter, however, must be doubted according to the current status. But then, I may be wrong. Maybe once again the intuitive whiteboard interface as a unique selling point is the trump card in the talon.

        A
        AS_98244341-Visitor
        1-Visitor
        February 25, 2021

        1- How does mathcad prime 6 compare to mathcad 15(M050)? As an enginerring student which one would you recommend me to use, or do you think I should avoid mathcad altogether and go back to Matlab?

         

        I have used a bit of both(prime 6 and m050) and it seems that prime 6 is more user friendly in terms of editing equations and defining functions. For example you can use '..' instead of ' ; ' when defining a range. The graph quality of prime 6 is also significantly better than m050.

        The reason why I switched to mathcad from Matlab is that: it is easier to make .rtf documents and submit it for homework etc. Matlab uses a high level programming language which need things like ' / ' for divide and ' ^ ' for power, this frustrates me because it can get very hard for big functions and that is why I came to mathcad. 

         

        2- Do you think prime 7 will be the game changer, what are your hopes?

         

        F
        Fred_Kohlhepp23-Emerald I
        23-Emerald I
        February 25, 2021

        How does mathcad prime 6 compare to mathcad 15(M050)? 

         

        Mathcad 15 still has a number of capabilities that Prime (even 6) has not yet achieved.

         

        Which one would you recommend me to use, or do you think I should avoid mathcad altogether and go back to Matlab?

         

        If you are just starting out, I suggest that you keep fluent in MatLab--that software is very powerful and pervasive.  The rate of development of Prime has been very disappointing; PTC's intent seems to be to attach Mathcad to their 3D design programs as a calculator.

         

         It seems that prime 6 is more user friendly in terms of editing equations and defining functions. For example you can use '..' instead of ' ; ' when defining a range. 

         

        You are confusing editor changes with capability.  There have been several major changes in editors in Mathcad's history and each one was painful.  In Mathcad 15, a subscript is achieved with a simple period, Prime requires "cntrl -".  Any change must be adapted to.  I agree that the Prime editor will probably outlast the older one.

         

        Do you think prime 7 will be the game changer, what are your hopes?

         

        PTC's track record with revisions has not been encouraging, and their boast/success ratio is not good.  If you move to Prime 7 and discard 15, your best hope should be that the new, embedded conversion actually works, or a lot of good engineering math will be lost.

         

         

         

         

         

         

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