Nice and free math software

[Ned]

Has anyone tried this math software:

http://calcpad.net/

 

 

The program can be downloaded from

http://calcpad.net/Download/Calcpad_Setup.exe

 

It is not that powerful, but it is simple, handy and totally free. It supports input forms generation and Html reporting. That makes it a good option for engineering calculations worksheets especially for structural design.

It also supports complex numbers, custom variables and functions, graphing in 1D and 2D, units, numerical methods, conditions (if-else-end if), cycles, comments etc.

[AlanHo]

That is a powerful piece of software for complex calculations - but my old and trusty slide rule, Casio digital calculator (£6.99 form Tesco) and Microsoft Excel adequately cover my needs.

 

 

[andsome]

A straightforward calculator does all I want it to.

[catgate]

11 hours ago, AlanHo said:

That is a powerful piece of software for complex calculations - but my old and trusty slide rule, Casio digital calculator (£6.99 form Tesco) and Microsoft Excel adequately cover my needs.

 

 

I was given a CURTA calculater many years ago by an old fellow who had retired.  What a wonderful thing it is.  I don't know if they are still being manufactured.

[AlanHo]

I did see a Curta many moons ago - a late friend collected vintage calculators of all sorts.

 

this is a web page illustrating the mechanical marvel.

 

http://www.vcalc.net/cu.htm

[andsome]

Does it run on coal?

[Ned]

It is not about just calculating expressions like 2 + 3 = 5. It is also to about documenting your calcs in design reports. I still have a colleague that writes them with MathType + hand calculator each time again and again. With Calcpad, you can program the entire solution and save it as a worksheet for future use. The next time, simply change some values, and it will recalculate to the end. Here are some better explanations about this:

https://calcpad.blog/2018/01/09/my-first-program-quadratic-equation/

 

It looks like programming, but it requires almost no programming skills except how to write formulas and comments. If you put question marks where you need to enter data, you can generate a web form and publish it, like this one:

http://calcpad.net/Worksheet/247/cubic-equation

 

About Excel, it is a great software... but for accounting. In general, spreadsheets are not so suitable for engineering for one main reason: It is difficult to see, check and display the actual formulas inside the cells. What i mean is that instead of "F = m*a", you see "= F6*B12". If you have a long spreadsheet with complex equations, you can quickly get lost. Unless, you use named cells, which is tedious. Additionally, you have to write the formulas again with MathType in order to display them properly in the report. However, I have seen a lot of spreadsheets, where the formula looks right, but the result is wrong. That is because the actual formula is different than the "official" one. Other things are more difficult as well: you cannot define your own functions (unless you use VBA), no variable substitution, np conditional splitting, no built in units support, etc.

 

For that reason, I switched to MathCAD some years ago. It is really a heavy weight champ - extremely powerful and produces nicely formatted reports. And I still prefer math software before spreadsheets when it comes to engineering. Calcpad is not that powerful, but it is lightweight and much more simple than MathCAD. It also works different: it parses plain text formulas and generates Html. I wish it could generate LaTeX or MathML to display better formulas, but it cannot do that for now.

[andsome]

15 hours ago, Ned said:

It is not about just calculating expressions like 2 + 3 = 5. It is also to about documenting your calcs in design reports. I still have a colleague that writes them with MathType + hand calculator each time again and again. With Calcpad, you can program the entire solution and save it as a worksheet for future use. The next time, simply change some values, and it will recalculate to the end. Here are some better explanations about this:

https://calcpad.blog/2018/01/09/my-first-program-quadratic-equation/

 

It looks like programming, but it requires almost no programming skills except how to write formulas and comments. If you put question marks where you need to enter data, you can generate a web form and publish it, like this one:

http://calcpad.net/Worksheet/247/cubic-equation

 

About Excel, it is a great software... but for accounting. In general, spreadsheets are not so suitable for engineering for one main reason: It is difficult to see, check and display the actual formulas inside the cells. What i mean is that instead of "F = m*a", you see "= F6*B12". If you have a long spreadsheet with complex equations, you can quickly get lost. Unless, you use named cells, which is tedious. Additionally, you have to write the formulas again with MathType in order to display them properly in the report. However, I have seen a lot of spreadsheets, where the formula looks right, but the result is wrong. That is because the actual formula is different than the "official" one. Other things are more difficult as well: you cannot define your own functions (unless you use VBA), no variable substitution, np conditional splitting, no built in units support, etc.

 

For that reason, I switched to MathCAD some years ago. It is really a heavy weight champ - extremely powerful and produces nicely formatted reports. And I still prefer math software before spreadsheets when it comes to engineering. Calcpad is not that powerful, but it is lightweight and much more simple than MathCAD. It also works different: it parses plain text formulas and generates Html. I wish it could generate LaTeX or MathML to display better formulas, but it cannot do that for now.

 

 

I must remember all that. for next time I need to know how many beans make five.