Just wanted to throw out my humble opinion here. I have been using Maple V5 for about 3 years or so now and I have always liked it. Very easy to use once you learn the syntax.
Then I got a copy of Mathcad Pro 2001 today. This thing is AWSOME! Almost everything I want to do has a hotkey or a tool bar I can pull up. This thing eats laplace and fourier for lunch. and I can input info anywhere on the screen instead of using a command line. Great for lab reports and presentations.
I’ve been using MathCAD for th past three years, back when we had gasoline-driven computers and had to store programs on notched sticks. It’s a great, intuitive program, the only problem being the ridiculous restrictions on file lengths.
I agree, it’s a wonderful piece of software. I’ve been using it since version 3, back in '95. My undergrad and Master’s theses are full of diagrams generated by MathCAD. It’s even more useful for quick memos - once you’re done with the calculation, you can just print out the worksheet and distribute it as a memo.
I love the way the software keeps track of units automatically. That is, you can type something like:
W = 10 lbf
A = (2 mm) * (5 cm)
P = W/A
And P comes out to 64 psi, or 3336 torr, or in whatever units you need. No room to make unit conversion errors!