Mathcad version differences, etc.
 

The recent thread discussing W0IYH's new book got me researching Mathcad
version differences and availability of add-ons; I found essentially nothing
on the 'net that summarizes versions differences and suspect that reading
the release notes from each version would be required to do the job.
Has anyone seen such an analysis?

I have version 4.0, and from reading archived newsgroup posts it seems
that 4.0 and 5.0 were highly regarded, with increasing complaints arising
after 6.0. Worksheet (.mcd) file formats were ascii until 7.0, and evidently
more recent versions are xml based (do these no longer use a binary file
format?) I would like to continue to use 4.0, and I also appreciate that
this version is unencumbered with intrusive protection schemes (I choose
tools that are designed to work for me and not against me), doesn't need
a mysterious installation procedure (just execute the product from its
target directory), and has a small footprint but is not memory constrained.
Has anyone ever documented the ascii worksheet file format (which could
permit a re-writing of later version files to be backward compatible with
earlier versions within the constraints of common features)?

Does anyone happen to have the DSP "function pack" compatible with 4.0?
As described in advertising literature that came with my version, it offers
some excellent filter design tools that would provide interactivity missing
from the tools that I've been using, and I would enjoy trying them ;)

Michael

Mathcad version differences, etc.
 

Michael,

"msg" wrote in message
news:er2dnY-QZL0urJHVnZ2dnUVZ_sKqnZ2d@cpinternet...
The recent thread discussing W0IYH's new book got me researching Mathcad
Has anyone seen such an analysis?

I haven't, but I can tell you that version 12 was still just an "enter the
product code and it works anywhere" whereas by version 2001 it required
Internet activation (presumably with a finite number of activations -- not
good if you upgrade computers regularly and and to keep it for awhile). (The
versions went 12, 2000, 2001, 2001i, 13, and now 14, AFAIK.)

The biggest improvement for me between version 12 and 2001 was that they let
you have scales on both the left- and right-hand sides of a graph. There were
of course other new features and what-not, that's just the only one I remember
caring that much about!

The change to an XML file structure (it's ASCII-readable) allows for easy
searching of MathCAD files and -- ostensibly -- being able to parse, convert,
and create your own MathCAD worksheets programmatically, at least if they
actually documented the structure ("schema") reasonably well. (Some companies
change to XML just to satisfy some big corporate "checklist" of features
required of software and don't publish -- or incompletely publish, as with
Microsoft Office -- their schemas.)

---Joel