Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!csi.uottawa.ca!news
From: cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne (055908))
Subject: Re: Maple or symbolic computation.
Message-ID: <1991Feb22.185006.845@csi.uottawa.ca>
Keywords: n
Sender: news@csi.uottawa.ca
Nntp-Posting-Host: prgw
Organization: CSI Dept., University of Ottawa
References: <Mbl3R2_00h7Z0CfVQD@cs.cmu.edu>
Distribution: usa, ch, d, f
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 18:50:06 GMT

>So how about Maple. What are the hardware requirements, where to get it,
>how much does would it cost?

Yes, it is available.  It requires a hard drive (I have a copy, but have
been unable to install it on my non-existent HD :-)).

It cost me $95 under educational pricing.  It probably costs more for
non-students.

It apparently runs in 1MB, so that a 1040ST should certainly be 
adequate.

>(W)hat about
>Mathematica, is it also available for the Atari? 

I doubt that they (Wolfram Research) will ever support an Atari version.
They have versions for Sun, IBM PC (I think there's a version for 386), 
Mac, and probably some other workstation machines.  The Atari often gets
overlooked (I expect Amigoids will also be overlooked).

Maple got ported to the ST because a fellow involved with the Symbolic
Computation Group at Waterloo had an ST, and wanted to run Maple on his
own machine.  The same thing happened for the Amiga.  There was no marketing
plan to produce versions for these machines - it just sort of happened.
(Then there was the guy that wrote a GNU CC code generator for the 6502
so that he could write ANSI C programs for his C64...  But I digress...
this should go on alt.hackers/alt.computer.folklore...)

>Please help me on that. I don't wan't to tell my friend that "he's got
>the wrong computers"....

Certainly not.  The ST may never run Mathematica, but it is nonetheless
mathematically supported, with packages like Maple, J, (Hi, Prof. Dickey!)
Form,...

-- 
Christopher Browne
cbbrowne@csi.uofottawa.ca
University of Ottawa
Master of System Science Program
