ali@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer) (01/22/88)
--- Seeing all these messages about equation formatters, etc, I thought I'd mention a program that I hope will soon appear on your dealer's shelves. The program is "Milo," written by Ron Avitzur, a physics student at Stanford. He describes the program as a "math processor" --- just like a "word processor," except it processes equations. The program does a lot --- It solves equations, simplifies expressions, reduces terms, processes matrices, evaluates summations and products, etc... The goal of the program is to turn the Mac into a scratch pad for math work --- Normally you can sit in front of your favorite word processor and just type, even if you do not have a clear idea of what you want to write. This is easily possible because most word processors are easy to use and do not interfere with the thinking process. Milo attempts to do that for math processing --- To give you a environment where you can type/solve/simply equations, without having to worry about formatting the equations as you type. The program provides many menu options, with keyboard equivalents for all. It'll probably take some time for beginners to get used to, but, the program is extremely fast once you're used to it. (Ron can type up a page full of physics equations, all beautifully solved, in under a minute...) This is very important --- Most easy-to-use programs do not get faster as you get more accustomed to them... Milo might prove a bit more difficult to get started in than most Mac programs (mainly due to the dozens of options), but it does get much faster as you get used to it... Milo also provides graphing capabilities, with any level of zooming into any area of the graph --- this allows you to solve for roots of equations visually and also allows you to check results obtained through other methods. And, of course, you can include text (using multiple fonts/styles) in your document, as well as all the equations, solutions, and the graphs. In my opinion, the program is perfect for students doing problem sets for science and engineering classes. The program will not do your problem sets for you, but instead, let you get through those tedious and messy equations without losing terms or minus signs. And it's ease of use allows you to spend almost no extra time on problems of typesetting, formatting, etc. I think TeX is still a better choice for those doing papers, articles, or dissertations --- mainly because TeX provides true typesetting with enough power to satisfy any sort of document processing. But, TeX doesn't solve equations, just typesets them, so even with TeX, there's plenty of use for Milo. The program is available from Sumex, I believe --- in <info-mac>. It's a demo version that pretty much lets you do most everything, and it also provides info on how to get in touch with Ron, the author. Ron took off considerable time from Stanford to work on Milo, and is currently in the final stages of writing documentation and sorting through his options for distributing the program. With luck, you'll see Milo on the dealer shelves within a few months. If you want to contact him through email (and I think he loves getting mail about Milo!), try sending mail to a.avitzur@lear.stanford.edu. Finally I should mention that I am not associated with Milo in any way, except that I've seen it and am impressed by it. (I haven't even used the program for an extended period of time --- mainly because I don't use Macs... 8-) But, if you have any use for equation processing, and you use a Macintosh, definitely get your hands on the demo version and try it out. Ali Ozer, ali@rocky.stanford.edu