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A
anthonyQueen11-Garnet
11-Garnet
May 8, 2024
Question

Mathcad Prime 10 vs Mathcad 11 (or 15)

  • May 8, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 15105 views

I started my college years using Mathcad 11, and I still use it after two decades. And for many reasons: 

  • I know its plus and minus points (more plus than minus).
  • Once upon a time, I could integrate it with Excel and other software.
  • It is reliable overall: no crashes or file corruption.
  • It saves space and memory: in 100Mb of HDD and a few dozen Mb of RAM, it does what other mammoth software (including the following versions of Mathcad, not to speak of Mathcad Prime) do.

I always kept an eye on the PTC community to look at the reactions to Mathcad Prime's evolution. I think I am not alone in still using the Classic Mathcad (if not v.11, it will be v.15).  I am interested mainly in Calculus (so symbolic math solutions), Matrix Algebra Simulations, and a few Statistics. At the same time, I am not interested in integrating Mathcad to other PTC software.

Is it worth moving to (or trying) Mathcad Prime v.10? Given the above interests, how is it compared to the previous Prime versions and to Mathcad Classic? 

 

Thanks for any feedback.

    2 replies

    W
    Werner_E25-Diamond I
    25-Diamond I
    May 8, 2024

    If your main interest is symbolics I would say that you sure should stay with MC11, if you are able to..

    MC11 has an (old) version of Maple under the hood for symbolic math and this sure outperforms muPad in MC15 and also friCAS/Axiom in P10.

     

    But you should judge on your own and use the free 30-day evaluation version of Prime 10 and testdrive it using some of your typical use cases.

      A
      anthonyQueen11-GarnetAuthor
      11-Garnet
      May 8, 2024

      @Werner_E  thanks for your feedback. 

      I know that the symbolic computation in Mathcad 11 (MC11) was taken from Maple, contrary to subsequent versions. I've managed to run MC11 on the latest Windows versions by mixing trial and paid versions that I kept from my college years.

      You're correct in saying that trying out a new software yourself is a good approach. However, there's a problem nowadays. In the past decades, software was of 'manageable' dimensions. Now, even installing one of them can potentially overload your PC with several gigabytes of files. Additionally, uninstalling them is never a perfect operation. That's why I was seeking some feedback on the progress of Mathcad Prime (MCP) before deciding to give it a go.

        F
        Fred_Kohlhepp23-Emerald I
        23-Emerald I
        May 8, 2024

        At the risk of offending the PTC community monitors  I'd like to point out that Maple is developing what they intend to be a direct  competitor named "Maple Flow."  Still being refined but backed by the full Maple application.  Might be worth a look!

          L
          LucMeekes23-Emerald IV
          23-Emerald IV
          May 8, 2024

          Hi Anthony,

           

          Being a happy user of Mathcad 11 myself, and having some experience with Prime (I have Prime 1 to 10 express installed, and got to use full prime 7 and 8 for a good 2 years), I think I can be of a little advice here:

          - All versions of Prime are slow (compared to Mathcad). The loading of the software is slow, the loading of the symbolic machine is slow, equation entering is slow, and I find the calculations are slow as well compared to Mathcad, but that is subjective. As you can read here, Prime 10 did not go into the right direction.

          - The symbolics of Prime have improved over the past few iterations, it will now symbolically solve (even sets of) differential equations, but then, Mathcad 11 can also solve a good few. But in general the symbolics of Prime are still a work in progress, is my opinion.

          - The handling of matrices is a little better than Mathcad. Entering them is facilitated by a nice interface, you can address not only matrix columns, but also rows, and they support multiple dimensions. But, as in Mathcad, Prime has no specific support for multidimensional (>2) arrays.

          - Prime automatically labels your inputs. It will detect and automatically label variables, (built in) functions, (natural) constants, system items, keywords and units. That's nice and often works, but the autolabelling feature also sometimes mistakes, leaving you puzzled for a while AND the set of labels cannot be expanded.

          - Solve blocks are ugly. I'll leave it there.

          - Graphics and plots...

          - It's no problem to install Prime 10 on a windows machine, provided it's 64-bit. If the above doesn't discourage you, I suggest you try it out, if necessary on a different PC. If you dislike it, you can remove it again.

           

          Success!
          Luc

            C
            Cornel19-Tanzanite
            19-Tanzanite
            May 8, 2024
            @LucMeekes wrote:

            But, as in Mathcad, Prime has no specific support for multidimensional (>2) arrays.

            What do you mean by this?

            L
            LucMeekes23-Emerald IV
            23-Emerald IV
            May 8, 2024

            You cannot create a 3-dimensional array, and index the elements like:

            M[i,j,k

            Instead you have to create a matrix of vectors, or a vector of matrices, or a vector of vectors of vectors.

             

            Success!
            Luc

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