MPC - Linux version
-------------------

Mpc is an interactive calculator equipped with user-definable functions
and constants. It was conceived to calculate values from expressions and
functions using algebraic notation and allowing implicit multiplication,
with a precision selectable from 10 to 295 digits.
The program was written in Pascal and Assembler and compiled using the
Free Pascal Compiler made by Florian Klaempfl and the FPC Developer's Team
(http://www.freepascal.org/).
For those who are interested in sources, two units in plain Pascal (mpcalc
and bigint) used to calculate with high precision the usual operations and
functions are available on the author's websites.

INSTALLATION

To install the program:

-  Copy the executable mpc to some directory in the path, such as
   ~/bin or /usr/local/bin.
-  To have the documentation accessible via the system man(1) command,
   copy mpc.1 in some manual directory such as /usr/man/man1 or
   /usr/local/man/man1.
-  A reference directory for data files can be selected by creating
   a directory $HOME/.mpc or by setting the environment variable
   MPC_DATA_PATH to the preferred directory, which must have the
   proper access, read and write permissions for the user.
   If a reference directory is not set, the program will refer to the
   current directory.

HINTS AND TIPS

Mpc works also in xterm or rxvt windows with at least 80 columns and 25 lines.

The program contains an exhaustive help, available through the commands "help"
and "?".

The file mpc.dat, containing user-defined functions and constants, history and
settings, can be saved using the command 'save' for automatic reloads upon
start-up.

AVAILABILITY

The statically linked binaries for Linux-i386 can be downloaded from
sunsite.unc.edu/pub/linux/apps/math/calc/mpc-*.bin.tar.gz
The executables for FreeBSD and MsDos can be found on the author's websites.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank Michael Van Canneyt (michael.vancanneyt@wisa.be), Alexa Clark
(acasoft@pacbell.net) and Giorgio Fornasiero (joe@soluzioni-sw.it) for their
assistance during the program development.

AUTHOR

Franco Milani
email: nadir@solaris.polarhome.com or astlab@inwind.it
http://www.polarhome.com/~franco/
http://www.polarhome.com:723/~nadir/software/
http://spazioinwind.libero.it/frm/software/
