Over 2 decades ago, I had a need to document technical analyses. After some research, I discovered Mathcad V3 (?). It worked with Windows 3 (or 3.1). I was ecstatic that Mathcad served my specific needs! Over the years, there were somewhat regular updates. As had been mentioned in other posts, Mathcad originally used the Maple Symbolic engine and then moved away from it. That was not a problem as I purchased a Maple license to fill in the gap.
The above arrangement worked for me until PTC no longer supported Mathcad 15. It served my purposes for many years, so I decided to try Mathcad PRIME. It was an early version and it would not serve my purposes. However, I kept track of it and it became obvious that PTC was serious about developing PRIME's capabilities. I have had the opportunity to work with PTC PRIME 10 (and soon, V11) at my workplace. I am pleased with the capabilities and considered purchasing a personal license.
This leads me to MY BIG ISSUE. I am unable to use Mathcad V15 on Windows 11 (though I am still working on it). I am VERY disappointed to find that PRIME licenses are annual SUBSCRIPTIONS only. I cannot afford the annual cost of a subscription, so PTC PRIME is not a solution for my personal needs. There are a handful of people that I collaborate with on personal technical projects, or just academic interests. I assume that there are others who are in similar situations.
My question and comment to PTC is that, while it probably is good business, it seems unethical and unfair to lock users into using a product that could become obsolete at some future time by not offering lifetime licenses.
I regularly use other, industry standard software products to support my personal interests that offer affordable annual license subscriptions for hobbyists (for lack of a better description). However, in those cases, when I opt out of the subscriptions, the most recent update that I have will continue to work.
Regards,
Frank DiJoseph
