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Alani1-Visitor
1-Visitor
January 27, 2015
Question

Mathcad and 64-bit Windows

  • January 27, 2015
  • 3 replies
  • 11004 views

Hey there,

I'm having hardship in finding any version of MATHCAD software that can run on 64-bit windows. Perhaps, I'm just from the old school and my expertise came through working with many engineering companies where MATHCAD was the tool number one for design, and therefore, I had to learn it.

Now, I'm attending the graduate school and it looks none of my new classmates have heard of MATHCAD! The trend speaks MATLAB! The university is vehemently touting this software from MathWorks. They made MATLAB free, free online training, free tutorials, free on-campus training, free one-to-one training, free maintenance, and most importantly, MATLAB can be installed on any operating system from windows XP 32-bit to 8.1 64-bit and any of Mac IOS system!

And guess what! MathWorks package offers us access to all of the following for free:

  • MATLAB
  • Simulink
  • Symbolic Math Toolbox
  • Bioinformatics Toolbox
  • Control System Toolbox
  • Curve Fitting Toolbox
  • Data Acquisition Toolbox
  • DSP System Toolbox
  • Image Processing Toolbox
  • Instrument Control Toolbox
  • Optimization Toolbox
  • Parallel Computing Toolbox
  • Signal Processing Toolbox
  • SimMechanics
  • Simulink Control Design
  • Stateflow
  • Statistics Toolbox
  • SimScape

I tried to call PTC today to ask for help with my new operating system of 64-bit and all I got is hearing all the options of their answer machine and wasted 1 hour waiting on the line without success to speak with a person like us!

I guess this is it! it's the time to bid PTC and MATHCAD a farewell! It's been more than 10 years for me using MATHCAD and it's hard to let it go, but I'm stranded and left with no choice, except MATLAB.

I'm just sharing this story to see who else did encounter this problem before and what was the best way forward for this case?

Thank you.

3 replies

F
FredLusk14-Alexandrite
14-Alexandrite
January 27, 2015

Naji…

I am running Mathcad 15 and Mathcad Prime 3.0 on 64-bit Windows 7. I can even run my old Mathcad 8 in compatability mode.

I have never used Matlab, but from what I can tell it is an entirely different beast than Mathcad. Matlab is certainly powerful, apparently much more powerful than Mathcad, but it's primarily a programming environment. The beauty of Mathcad is that it doesn't require programming (although it can be done), but can be used to make calculations just like us old guys used to do with pencil and paper and either slide rule (yes, I can still use one) or calculator. The worksheet model produces good looking and easy to review documents, etc. etc.

I suggest not giving up on Mathcad, but rather add Matlab as ANOTHER tool in your toolbox.

Fred

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    HarveyHensley12-Amethyst
    12-Amethyst
    January 28, 2015

    There are a lot of people running MC 15 and Prime on 64-bit Windows, me among them.

    The free modules you get as a student won't be free when you aren't in school. I think they all must be purchased separately with Matlab. For Mathcad, most of what you listed are part of the program.

    You are probably correct about chemical engineers not being familiar with Mathcad. I don't know why because as I have shown in this community and on my website, it can be a very useful tool for ChEs.

      A
      Alani1-VisitorAuthor
      1-Visitor
      January 29, 2015

      Thanks for sharing your experience! I totally agree with you. Mathcad is not only very useful tool but also is very easy to use. I can't say how surprised I'm for the Millennials knowledge about Mathcad. As per my classmates: all told me that they got introduced to Matlab while they were in high school and they had no chance to learn other softwares. If there's someone to blame for losing the future market of this industry should be who ever runs PTC back-then-and-now. I can't tell how I like Mathcad, but, at the same time, I can't tell how I dislike their customer services. They need to learn a lot about how to treat customers in more professional manner, rather than taking your money and leave stranded in the middle of fierce semester.

      L
      Liv7-Bedrock
      7-Bedrock
      March 4, 2015

      Older version, like Mathcad 2001 (and Mathconnex) with direct installation, run OK too on my 64 bit OS Win 7-Pro (SP1).

      Best, Liv.

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