PTC Mathcad Prime: Past, Present, Future

And that's the most important points:

"... Currently, we’re hard at work on some aspects of and finalizing the plans for our PTC Mathcad Prime 4.0 release and beginning to map out the subsequent Prime 5.0 release. But before those are released, we’ll be launching PTC Mathcad Prime 3.1. PTC Mathcad Prime 3.1, due early in calendar 2015, is an intermediate release. While we are developing some of the larger components of Prime 4.0 we are releasing capabilities that allow PTC Creo users to better access and leverage the benefits of PTC Mathcad in their existing workflow, which the PTC Creo community has been asking about for some time. There are features in PTC Creo that enable users to calculate parameters but PTC Mathcad is specifically designed to do that job. PTC Creo users want to take advantage of the benefits of PTC Mathcad to calculate and, just as importantly, document the reasoning behind those calculations within the PTC Creo framework. PTC Mathcad Prime 3.1 will introduce a powerful new integration that will allow PTC Creo users access to the features of PTC Mathcad that they’ve been asking for directly within PTC Creo, embedded within their existing workflow. We talked about that integration in a previous blog and will discuss more aspects of it in future entries. PTC Mathcad Prime 3.1 will also include a completely rewritten API. The API is used to integrate and automate PTC Mathcad with other tools and in many different company processes. The API in PTC Mathcad Prime 3.1 has been re-written from scratch to be more efficient and easier to use. It also adds important new features like the ability to get and set data in different units and an event handler. We’re developing an extensive SDK with documentation and a number of worked examples to make designing your own integrations as easy as possible... ... So what’s next? We’re in the final stages of prioritization planning for PTC Mathcad 4.0 and our development team is actively working on the larger projects. We’ve been using our customer feedback to identify those functionality areas that are most important to address. The prioritization process candidates we are selecting from include worksheet protection, Area protection, Area locking, copy/paste multiple regions to Word (or other external applications), the ability to save a worksheet as a Word document, the ability to save a worksheet in PDF format, plot improvements such as title, grid lines and 2nd Y-axis, ability to wrap long equations, and general PTC Mathcad areas of usability improvements. As well as this, we’re in early discussions on how to reintroduce calculation server functionality that would serve the same use cases as it did back in PTC Mathcad 13.0 while utilizing the power of modern computing infrastructure. After the prioritization phase for PTC Mathcad Prime 4.0 is complete we’ll tackle PTC Mathcad Prime 5.0; and though it’s in the early stages of that release one item that is on top of the list is Input Controls. This is a large project that we’ve been discussing specifications for at length. As we continue to populate our enhancement database the picture of customer prioritized items will become more apparent but we already have a good idea of what people are asking for. Text styles, hyperlinks, program debugging, redefinition warnings and scripted components are popular items and will be considered side by side with other areas of functionality that we have feedback on and will continue to receive as we talk to customers in the field ...".

Hi Mike;

I have concerning details about PTC Mathcad software engineering department. Rumor has it that they visited the CERN LHC in Switzerland. They were at the facility to discuss candidate features for the upcoming versions of Mathcad Prime. Unfortunately one of them fiddled with some software settings on a remote terminal and a serious accident occurred at the facility. It would seem that all the PTC Mathcad software engineers were bombarded with superluminal Neutrinos. They are all OK thank god and back working at PTC. However they have been infected and are now working at speeds faster than the speed of light. PTC are monitoring the situation but the situation is serious because the Mathcad programmers are now working at such tremendous speed they appear to have ripped the very fabric of time and space. The consequence of which is that each version Mathcad Prime goes further back in time. Even though they know the problem exists they cannot allay the atomic affects on the human genome. It seems that Mathcad Prime 5 is now destined to have Mathcad 13 or below capability. Thankfully unlike the Ebola virus this cell degradation and time warp effect is not contagious and doesn't seem to have spread to their other programming teams. But there are some stories about that the CREO team may have been also exposed to high intensity Mathcad programing team as a result of software interoperability.

As a very experienced Mathcad user I wanted to garner your thoughts on how the user forum could help the PTC Mathcad programming team? I was going to suggest that maybe you and Werner could use Mathcad Prime 3 to come up with an answer but then I released that MC Prime 3 it is so buggy and slow that that approach would be futile (I calculated that it would give a result but take 10^10000000000 years of CPU time). Then I thought that maybe you could produce a possible solution by plotting the variables and then intuiting an answer but then I remembered that MC Prime plots are also broken. I think we all are in deep sh... what do you think?

A very concerned maintenance paying user.

I have been using Mathcad since version 1.0. When it was independent it was a great company. I had many friends there, all have since left. From the day PTC took it over it was a nightmare to work with. I suspect I have been responsible for the sale of as many Mathcad licenses as anyone at PTC. It was required for engineering students at my University until it became too expensive. Many of my former students got their companies to buy it when they went to work. I have used Mathcad documents in court. I have been away from Mathcad for a couple years and am just getting back too it. I had hoped PTC had wised up, apparently not. I see PTC is doing away with many of the reasons (Mathcad features - whiteboard in particular) I started using Mathcad in the first place. Pretty soon no one except the developers will want to use it. Really too bad, it was a good piece of software.