Mathcad Prime 7.0

[VladimirN]

New release date for Mathcad Prime 7.0:

[GrumpyOldTom]

So it's out, I just downloaded it & retrieved my licenses, when can I start griping?  Do I have to install it and try it out first?

Just kidding, I hope it's great, but wow, it's been a lo-o-o-ng wait and I note (was it Fred?) had an issue with units usage already, so...

But I got some emails from them the other day in which I was awarded all kinds of badges here, so I guess I'm supposed to be ecstatic or something!  And I'm thinking, I post seldom if ever, so what do the really helpful guys here have?  Gigabytes worth of badges?

But again, I'm really hopeful.  Especially since 15 is now given a firm 4 year max end-of-life!

[RichardJ]

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@GrumpyOldTom wrote:

Especially since 15 is now given a firm 4 year max end-of-life!

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I wasn't aware of that. I guess it was inevitable at some point. I have given up on Mathcad anyway though (hence my rather rare visits here), so perhaps it's of little consequence to me. If you get the license file sorted out before PTC kills it, you should be good to go for a few years after that, until your current PC dies or becomes obsolete. For me, that's into retirement, so Mathcad would be a luxury, not a necessity, anyway. But I'm never going to pay PTC a subscription, so I'm never going to switch to Prime. Smath is a better option than that.

It's a real shame what PTC did to Mathcad. A great piece of software with a potentially great future, and Prime 1.0 moved it backwards 20 years (I had connections in PTC at that point, and one word I used to describe it to them was "pathetic"). Unfortunately, they have had a lot of years to bring it up to speed, and IMO have failed, although I admit the last version of Prime I actually looked at was 5.0. 

RIP Mathcad ☹️

[GrumpyOldTom]

Oh no, when you have an individual license file, Mathcad stops working when the paid support runs out.  So for us, that's this August.  I'll be interested in seeing what management wants to do as that is coincident with my retirement date.  So we either go for the (up to 4 year) extension contract, or we make a very hurried update of 32 years' worth of Mathcad calculations.  Functionally, to me it only makes sense to go with the 4 year extension and start a dedicated effort to get all needed calculations from 15 into Prime.

Smath is probably not an option for the company, but may be my only recourse in retirement, though they do want me to consult and part of that deal is to retain access to the software.  Other software, Maple, Mathematica??? who knows.

[RichardJ]

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@GrumpyOldTom wrote:

Oh no, when you have an individual license file, Mathcad stops working when the paid support runs out. 

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That depends on your license. I have a perpetual license (two of them, in fact) for Mathcad 15. As long as I use the current PC, they should work (although a recent thing seems to be that a Windows update kills the license, but I only need to point MC at the license file again to make it work). If I change PC I would need a new license file though, and if PTC will will not issue one, that is the end.

[SteenGroðe]

There are always ways to keep the old Mathcad running... I even has mine (v11.2SG) running with a later Maple, the Excel addin still working and Smartsketch more so so (issues with communication of parameters). Mathconnex hmm.. that just dies these days. I will have to look deeper into that matter. I have another Danish program with the same "feature" to study more in details. Axum... hmm gave up on that in WinXP as any input was doubled.

@richard: M$ has begun doing silly things, but I have not had any license file issue on my PC's. I have noticed it among students but it has been like that for at least 15 years. Never been able to pinpoint the issue though, but found workarounds.

[Werner_E]

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 If I change PC I would need a new license file though, and if PTC will will not issue one, that is the end.

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More precise - if you change your NIC. So it might be a good idea to bind the license to a virtual NIC as long as new licenses are issued. On the other hand, with most virtual NICs you can manually change the MAC to match your license.

[GrumpyOldTom]

So what's the deal with 7.0, all?  The boss took it for a spin yesterday and said it's a non-starter, he'll keep us on 15 as long as possible.  And this is a YOUNG guy.  He actually LIKES Micro$oft "Word", a strange program purporting to be a word processor, but really designed to measure user aggravation level prompted by software randomly "helping" you.  I think it's tied to somebody's psychology PhD thesis or something...

Anyway, the young boss noted that the plots don't even support a second "Y" axis.  Did he miss something?  We also link in a library of user-added functions, and last I heard that ran a lot slower with Prime as well, maybe that's his other beef.

But there is no turning back; the ribbon has and always will draw vacuum down to about 0.1 torr (a nice way of saying a current vulgarism in the USA), but eventually I'll get all the keystrokes down like I do now in 15 pretty much and auto-hide the ribbon - as I've noted before, calculations are generally vertically oriented; one reads down the page, so the ribbon is counter-productive by it's very nature.  But now I can't dock toolbars to the sides of the window anymore, etc.  I wonder if the ribbon could be made side-docking?  That might actually be pretty nice.

Still, I'm thinking that as I get used to it it will, for general scratch-pad calcs, become my day-to-day again.  Anybody else doing the good/bads on the new version, or am I on the wrong thread?  Do they have a separate curmudgeon's forum?  😉

[Werner_E]

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Anyway, the young boss noted that the plots don't even support a second "Y" axis.  Did he miss something?

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Maybe. Primes 2D plots (we won't talk about those incredible lousy 3D plots here) are missing a lot of other things like labels, grid lines, legend, more formatting features, compared to real Mathcad (and real Mathcad never famous for being able to produce quality plots for publication). So in the newer versions of Prime, PTC has added a third party chart component. Its badly integrated, extremely slow, does not support units, does not scale according to the screen resolution (and so is quite unusable with a smaller 4K display), ...

But, alas, this chart component supports a secondary y-axis, grids and labels 😉

[GrumpyOldTom]

Thank you, sir.

I'm just shaking my head. Truly. I've been making fantastic publication-quality plots with MATLAB for the last 20 years.  What in all that's holy is so hard about this?

Maybe that's what I'll have to do, pass all the plotting off to MATLAB... Kinda defeats the purpose, eh?

[Werner_E]

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I'm just shaking my head. Truly. I've been making fantastic publication-quality plots with MATLAB for the last 20 years.  What in all that's holy is so hard about this?

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Yes, we can really only shake your heads in disbelief . Especially as it seems to be too hard for a company with full fledged CAD and modelling software among their flagships. But PTCs intention obviously never was to position Mathcad/Prime as a stand alone program which competes with MatLab, etc. Guess they thought they just bought a small cute calculation module to integrate in Creo.

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Maybe that's what I'll have to do, pass all the plotting off to MATLAB... Kinda defeats the purpose, eh?

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Which purpose? The purpose we would like to use the program for or the purpose PTC sees in the program? Unfortunately, these are two very different points of view 😞

[GrumpyOldTom]

Well, yes, it's been discussed here before - the folks that quit the technical advisory committee in disgust, etc.  You know, I have no head for business at all - talk of budgets, cash flow, human resource allocation, etc, have me either perplexed, frustrated or asleep within 5 minutes.  So why the suits do what they do, I try to give them a break - I see what my owners go through as I work for a small company and am good friends with them.  You gotta keep cash coming in.

But this begs all description, truly.  As you noted, they can (presumably, every other solid modeling program can) photo-realistically render incredibly complicated assemblies.  I just found that plot component you mentioned, and suppose that I'll find the shortcomings you mentioned, but I can certainly take you word for it.

As I've said before, there is no reason a program such as this should not be on the desktop on any engineer that does even a modicum of analysis, from y = mx+b on up.  And truly, I'm pulling for them.  But yow, give me 15....

[DJF]

>Which purpose? The purpose we would like to use the program for or the purpose PTC sees in the program? Unfortunately, these are two very different points of view

I even struggle to figure out PTC's point of view.  If I accept that its mission is to be a plug-in to CREO, then why did they make a substantial investment in a new symbolics engine?  That money could have been spent on making it a better calculation and plotting tool for engineers and designers with enhancements for how it drives parametric models.  At least that would make sense for their intended customer base.   And then their enhancements tend to lose unit awareness - which is completely shocking to any user.  Lives literally depend on these calculations and they knowingly remove once of the most useful checks available.  Their vision isn't clear to me.

[GrumpyOldTom]

Oh my goodness.  I don't even have time to be doing this, but like a moth to a flame...

What in all that is good and true is that chart component? Seriously?  What am I missing here?  I've been half an hour trying to figure out how to get a trace to plot on the second Y axis. I have the second trace on the chart, but can't find any way to bind it to the second axis. You can't name your traces for the legend.  As near as I can tell, you can't move your legend or your plot title off the chart grid.  As Werner noted, don't even dream about 3D.

I set axis limits for the second Y axis in that flyout window you get when you double-click on the chart.  They did not change.  I set the Y2min and Y2max values in the Inputs area above the Chart - nothing changed.  If they were aiming for "intuitive", they missed.  So I thought, "Maybe I have to set Y1min, max first...?"  Oh no, Y1min isn't a valid variable name. Okay, it's Ymin & Ymax.  That set the limits on both the Y and Y2 axis and also changed the tick interval so there's no zero labeled...  Did they take lessons from the folks who torment us with Microsoft "Word"?

Ok, I'm new at Prime.  I get it.  But I've punched chads representing octal code out of cards for a Monroe-Lytton programmable calculator in 1972.  I've programmed FORTRAN, MATLAB gui's, AutoLISP, I've attached my own subroutines to ANSYS FEA solvers, done FEA in Mathcad (which I've used for the last 30 years), used all sorts of software for charting and plotting... I should be able to figure this out, right?

Sheesh. I gotta go back to paying, time-constrained work.  Just not with Prime 7.0 for now... Lessee, in 4 years they should be up to 11.0m I wonder what that will look like?

I'd add a caption but I'm speechless.

[GrumpyOldTom]

Ok, finally found the Y2 axis binding... and yes, you can name the traces for the legend...  But it's slowww.  and the cursor acts whackadoo in the flyout box dialogs, you can't see what you're typing.

Flyout dialog apparently overrides Y2min and Y2 Max

NOW BACK TO WORK TOMMY!

But glory, let's face it - Lotus 1-2-3 could do this in 1988.

[SteenGroðe]

If Prime still doesn't have 3D graph it can be because the original Mathcads 3D is 8bit code and I don't think Mathsoft ever got the source for that code.

[Werner_E]

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@SteenGroðe wrote:

If Prime still doesn't have 3D graph it can be because the original Mathcads 3D is 8bit code and I don't think Mathsoft ever got the source for that code.

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That would imply that PTC would be unwilling or unable to write a 3D module for Prime themselves.
But in fact, they actually did - unfortunately! There is a 3D plot ability in prime but its just embarrassing and an indictment for the developers.
The 2D graphic was not taken from the original Mathcad either, but created from scratch - again, unfortunately! The criticism of the missing second y-axis, missing grid, missing axis locking or legend, etc. PTC countered by sloppily and inadequately integrating a lame third party module into Prime.

I therefore believe that the real problem is not the lack of 8-bit source code.

[RichardJ]

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@Werner_E wrote:

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sloppily and inadequately integrating a lame third party module into Prime.

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I think what they used was this: ChartDirector . It's not lame at all. It's used in this software, Peak Spectroscopy , where you would never even know it's a third party module. The only reason I know it's used there is because the developer is a friend of mine. The reason I think this is what PTC is using is that I laid into them about graphing, and pointed them to this as an example. Months later they told me this was in fact the best module they could find, and more than a year after that they released the new graphing in Mathcad. So sloppily and inadequately integrated, yes. The module is not lame though, PTC just (as usual) did a really poor job of using what was handed to them on a plate.

[Werner_E]

Interesting information - thanks. Seems to be a powerful library - just image what others would have been able to come up with using it.

I wrote "lame" because the module is reacting so slowly and its user interface isn't really intuitive but quite irritating in some respects. But of course it may not be the software to blame for but what PTC did with it - no surprise.

[RichardJ]

I was hoping for something like this (and, of course, unit aware, which is entirely a function of the interface between the worksheet and the chart, not the chart itself): 3D surface with units display . Of course, that's not what PTC actually implemented 🙄

[Werner_E]

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@RichardJ wrote:

I was hoping for something like this (and, of course, unit aware, which is entirely a function of the interface between the worksheet and the chart, not the chart itself): 3D surface with units display . Of course, that's not what PTC actually implemented 🙄

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I guess most of us hoped for better.

On the other hand, after 10-15 years of PTC "development" hope already has died.

BTW, I just found a chartdir60.dll in my P6 installation with the embedded note "Legal Copyright Advanced Software Engineering ® 2015 D 
Legal Trademarks ChartDirector
Product Name ChartDirector 4 
Product Version 6.0.1.0"

[RichardJ]

OK, so it is ChartDirector. I haven't had the misfortune to experience these graphs in Mathcad, because PTC booted me out of their orbit, and I'm not going to pay a subscription for a lame product.

The fact that they couldn't properly integrate a product like ChartDirector says a lot about the development team. Not anything good, but a lot.

[GrumpyOldTom]

This is almost unbelieveable.  Freeware symbolics engine, a top-notch graphing program in a crippled implementation (remember Axum?)...  Look, I know as well as the next guy that it's a LOT easier to criticize code than it is to write it, truly and verily, amen.  Been there, done that.

But coders can do a heckuva lot with the proper guidance and support.  They aren't getting it - these decisions, I think it has been made clear in other posts, are coming from the suits.

So we have a crippled 2D "chart" add-in, internal plotting capability that is crippled as well, and both work differently with respect to units.  If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it.  These guys are starting to make the U. S. Congress look like a lean, mean model of efficiency and expert decision making!

This is terribly disappointing.  I can't imagine a computer without Mathcad on it, even in retirement.  They could have made something so market-cornering that the Justice Department would drop Google to go after them.  What a holy mess.

ETA:  Also in response to Fred and Werner below.  I didn't know it'd put the post right below Richard's.

[Fred_Kohlhepp]

Tom,

"This is terribly disappointing.  I can't imagine a computer without Mathcad on it, even in retirement."

Me neither!  In their defense (and I suspect, by mistake) the free version of Prime remains a pretty fair version.  I suggest stopping at Prime 4.0 Express if you can--the only change past that is the addition of the banner slanting across every page.  (In 4.0 it's a footnote in the footer.)  With help (thanks Luc and Werner particularly) you can do some truly useful work!  All of the "features" that are being complained about herein are "premium features," and you don't have to worry about them!  I'm finding that solve blocks are puzzles to be worked around (the "root" function still works,) and the (very old) method of solving initial value ODE problems using arrays to define a group of definitions works.

It's crippled, but it's FREE!

Grumpy old (retired) Fred

[Werner_E]

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@RichardJ wrote:

I haven't had the misfortune to experience these graphs in Mathcad, because PTC booted me out of their orbit, and I'm not going to pay a subscription for a lame product.

If you are curious, you always can test drive each new Prime version for free during its evaluation period of about a month. But I guess you know that and you can happily live without that disappointing experience.

I also could not be bothered so far to download and install P7. Maybe I give it a try some day to look at the new dropdowns - but from what I have read here, they don't seem to be a big step forward - no surprise.

[Raiko]

Hello Richard,

are you sure that this is ChartDirector? Unbelievable if so. Judging from the description on their website Prime's chart tool is nothing like ChartDirector. I've tried the chart tool on a large dataset i.e. in the order of 400.000 data points. Prime became so slow that I had to write a small routine to condense the data set otherwise the sheet would have become unusable.

[Fred_Kohlhepp]

They bought a different symbolics engine to avoid having to pay an even larger price for MuPad

[Werner_E]

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@Fred_Kohlhepp wrote:

They bought a different symbolics engine to avoid having to pay an even larger price for MuPad

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Not sure if they bought anything. As far as I am aware, the new symbolic is based on the free FriCAS/Axiom, a fork of the former Axiom. Its distributed under a very generous BSD license which also allows for commercial use, as far as I understood.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_(computer_algebra_system)

Maybe FDS's point was that if they just wanted an add-on for Creo, they could also have  thrown out the symbolic completely rather than putting some work in the integration of a new engine.

Maybe keeping Prime alive as a stand-alone program is just a milking the cow to the max. As long as people are willing to pay for, ...

[RichardJ]

I've never seen a cow being milked when it's lying on it's back with four legs in the air 🤔