#Scientific software ???
11 messages in this thread
To ALL Amiga Users:
In the editorial in this month's Amiga World I was suprised to see their
reader survey revealed "desparing wails" about a lack of scientific
software. As a physics graduate student I always thought of scientific
software as something you wrote when youy needed it. I suppose I've been
overlooking an opportunity.
I have had my Amiga for over a year now and can program reaonably well
in C and use most of the Amiga libraries. I have an MS in physics and did
much FORTRAN programming for my thesis. I do not have a job just now so I
can devote most of my time to programming. I do have one Question for any
Amiga Users who want scientific software:
What do YOU want, exactly, in the way of scientific software.
I would not want to waste too much time on a program to calculate
Clebsch-Gordon coefficients, for example, unless I knew there was some
Amiga User other than myself who even knew what a Clebsch-Gordon
coefficient was, and wanted a program to calculate them.
Also I would welcome any comments on the relative merits of trying to
sell software to publishing companies vs. distributing it as shareware vs.
trying to setup my own company to sell it.
Herbert L. Crowder
– via Whap!
My Scientific Software wish list:
1) A function plotter with high quality print outs. Every function
plotter I have seen just does a screen dump/iff picture of the plotted
function. I would like the kind of quality output that is provided by
MultiPlot-xlnc (a public domain data plotter). The hard copy print outs
from MultiPlot look exactly like those from an HPGL plotter.
2) A Finite Element analysis program (for structural engineering). Not
quite your field, but maybe you're interested in such things.
3) A MathCad type of program. I have heard of a program called Maple but
have not seen it work. I like the presentation of equations that MathCad
uses.
4) Statistical Software. I have seen one Shareware version where the
author was asking $150 (If memory serves me). That is abit stiff on price
for me.
5) A low cost Fortran compiler. I know of AC Fortran ( $ 195) and BCF
Fortran (all of the error messages are in German).
6) A vortex-lattice program for aerodynamic analysis. (If I ever break
down and buy AC Fortran I could port one over to the Amiga)
I generally go into school when I need to use a program of this type,
but it would be nice to see them for the Amiga. I would generally pay
around $60 – 70 for programs of good quality.
John –
Maple is a symbolic algebra program, similar to Mathematica.
Jeff Schweiger
John:
Thanks for your ideas. I have been working on a plotting program, but so
far concentrateing on the user interface (still struggeling with
Intuition). I had decided I wanted higher resolution output and am thinking
of PostScript or HP PCL, perhapes both. If you have other ideas for output
let me know, I might find some way to test them, but for now all I have is
a laser printer with PS and PCL.
A stastical software package is a possiblity for a second project, I'll
be thinking on it.
I don't know enough compiler theory or machine language to start on a
FORTRAN compiler, perhapes some day just don't hold your breath.
I don't know what MathCad is, is it anything like Macsyma? If so that is
also a bit above my current level of knowledge.
I would need to bone up a bit for a finite element analysis program or a
aerodynamic analysis program, maybe when I have some income from two or
three programs I would have time to study them. What is vortex-lattice, a
adaptive grid scheme for CFD?
Thanks again, I am keeping these messages so I will have some idea who
might be intersted in Beta testing software.
Herbert L. Crowder
– via Whap!
Mathcad is like a numerical solution version of macsyma with a nice
equation porcessor with wysiwyg appearance, etc. it runs on PCs.
Mathematica would be real nice… Clebsch-Gordan coeff.s would be useful
for those physical chemistry dudes (or chem. physics!) who actually need
the values, which means that they will probably be nasty to figure anyway.
for simple systems, it is enough to know that they exist, without actually
evaluatoing them…
Herbert
I'll send you e-,ail on my thoughts re: scientific software. In short,
ther is a tremendous need on several levels. Be in touch with you soon.
Michael
As an author (of MS-DOS programs) distributed both as freeware and
shareware, I can speak for the shareware side a bit.
Shareware can work very well. The key word is CAN. The program has to be
usefull to the end user and easy enough for them to use to make them want
to use it. (If it's easier to do it another way, they will).
Also, programming for a niche market can also cause "problems". In other
words you shouldn't expect 10,000 registrations.
The biggest thing I've found in shareware is that crippling doesn't work
well. Crippling can be anything from handling a reduced amount of data, to
missing features, to time limits it'll work, etc.
With missing features and reduced data handling, the user can't truly
evaluate the program (which is what shareware is all about). A database
limited to 10 records might be blazingly fast… but when loaded with a
1000, might be the slowest of it's kind available. (Sort of like taking a
new car for a test drive, but not being allowed to take it over 25 mph).
Time bombs, ala a program set to work until a certain date and then quit
causes lots of problems for sysops and users alike. (no one likes to
download a program and then find out it expired three months ago,
especially if it took a long distance call or was obtained from a service
like CIS.
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And even setting it to work for only 30 days after installation is weak.
Many times, I've installed a program to check it out, and then not gotten
back to it for months at a time. This even applies in my case to some
retail software. Plus the easy way around it is to reinstall.
The best system found so far is to include reminder screens of the
program's shareware status. With maybe a 3 second delay or a random key
that has to be hit to get rid of it.
This too can be carried too far. After setting up Navigator on the Mac (a
retail program) and TapCIS on my '386, I decided to setup Whap! on my Amiga
(they won't let you register Whap! until you have it setup and running).
While offline and using the Whap! program, it throws up a GUILT screen for
something like 8 seconds (even on my 33 mhz '030) BEFORE and AFTER making a
selection in the program. This meant that just INSTALLING the program had
extra minutes added. This was so frustrating, guess what when into the bit
bucket? (Yes I know it doesn't do it while online, supposedly, although it
DID happen once when it took awhile for Whap! to realize I was online).
So I use TapCIS on the PC exclusively for all my CIS work now. (When I have
extra money to toss around and time to waste, I'll prolly grit my teeth,
reinstall Whap! so I can order it).
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The greatest successes in shareware have been fully functioning programs.
GO ASPFORUM on here and check their organization out. For those who don't
know, ASP stands for Association of Shareware Professionals. The members
range from people like me (I've applied) who do this for a hobby, to folks
like Chris Magee of AutoMenu (an IBM program) and others who have become
millionaires from their shareware programs.
The goals of the ASP are to promote SHAREWARE as a means of obtaining
quality software, arbitrate between authors and users if there's a problem
(if the author is a member), and to help authors out with information on
distribution, programming (you can pick the brains of some of the best in
the business), and marketing methods.
There are only two requirements for membership in the ASP. #1, your
program submitted for membership must be considered "non-trivial".
Basically, that has been interpreted to mean "if one of us could hack it
out in a weekend, it's trivial". #2, it and other programs you release
must NOT be crippled.
Non-crippled also means that full documentation must be provided on disk.
The only differences allowed between trial and registered versions are that
the trial versions can have reminder screens (not to exceed 2) which
require not more than 3 keystrokes to get rid of, and which if autotimed,
last no more than 3 seconds. Also, I belive that as part of the registered
package, you are supposed to supply printed documentation.
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I know these requires sound strict. But following these guidelines have
made a LOT of people a lot of money over the years. Plus, they have
distribution programs for authors (mass mailings to distributors, et al)
and provide approved vendor and approved BBS listings. These are
distributors and bbs' which have met ASP's standards for truly explaining
what shareware is (ads suggesting that the $5 you spend for a program is
all you'll have to pay are forbidden for instance).
The ASP also lobbies Congress to protect shareware (the recent Software
Rental Act, original contained the phrase, "Public Domain Shareware", an
oxymoron. The ASP fought to change it (and succeeded, it was changed to
Public Domain Software). You can get free legal advice from copyright
attorneys (Lance Rose, Esq. is a fine one and is on CIS in the ASPFORUM)
and even help distributing your product in the international market.
Currently ASP is all IBM and Mac (they just started the Mac stuff) but
supposedly the only reason Amiga authors aren't members is that no one has
applied.
Why Shareware over Commercial? In shareware, while you pay the costs of
advertising and distribution (normally via disk vendors, user groups, bbs'
and services like CIS), you also get ALL the money!
Going retail, you only get a percentage of the profits, and someone else
has full control over distribution, advertising and pricing.
And I think it's safe to say, most of the people that would use your
software have UseNet, FTP, etc. access and use it to get a lot of their
software.
Rick, I agree with a lot of ASP's philosophy on ShareWare. It is agravating
to spend the time downloading a program only to find that SAVE or some
other important function has been disabled. When I find out a program has
been badly crippled it usually is deleted immediately with no remorse. But
I do not consider programs that omit features vs the registered versions as
being crippled. For example, the demo version of Whap! is a fully
functional program with the most important features enabled. If you like
the demo, then you can get a few "Extra" features plus get rid of the guilt
screens, which I admit were annoying but tolerable. All of the programs I
have written and released have been freeware. But I'm in the process of
writing my first ShareWare program. The program will be fully functional as
it stands, with the appropriate documentation. But if you send in the
ShareWare fee, then you will get extra modules along with the main program
which adds more features. I'm not sure if this is against ASP's philosophy,
but I believe it is a fair way to handle ShareWare plus get some return on
your programming effort.
John (in beautiful downtown Walla Walla) – via Whap!