Fun thing: Apparently if you buy a Raspberry Pi, it now comes with a 
free copy of Mathematica.

Not some crippled version. The entire thing. For free.



Well, I say "not crippled"... it'll only run on a Raspberry Pi. Which is 
fine for solving the occasional quadratic equation, but you can't do 
advanced aerospace engineering with it. So I guess it's not like they're 
losing any sales here.

Also: Apparently the Raspberry Pi is _more powerful_ than the hardware 
that Mathematica was originally released for. (Apple Mac? Apple II??)

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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Fun thing: Apparently if you buy a Raspberry Pi, it now comes with a 
> free copy of Mathematica.

> Not some crippled version. The entire thing. For free.

> (Recall that to *buy* Mathematica is currently over ?8,000.)

I really have to wonder how they can afford doing that (I'm assuming
this whole thing is completely legal.) Maybe they got some kind of
odd deal with Wolfram Research.

It's just a bit odd, because there are free math software out there
as well. Sure, most of them is not even nearly as good as Mathematica,
but still...

(By the way, personally I really like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARI/GP
which is a nice piece of math software usable on the command line.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Fri, 24 Jan 2014 18:23:14 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> Fun thing: Apparently if you buy a Raspberry Pi, it now comes with a
> free copy of Mathematica.
> 
> Not some crippled version. The entire thing. For free.

Yep.  Which reminds me, I need to check it out. :)

> (Recall that to *buy* Mathematica is currently over £8,000.)
> 
> Well, I say "not crippled"... it'll only run on a Raspberry Pi. Which is
> fine for solving the occasional quadratic equation, but you can't do
> advanced aerospace engineering with it. So I guess it's not like they're
> losing any sales here.
> 
> Also: Apparently the Raspberry Pi is _more powerful_ than the hardware
> that Mathematica was originally released for. (Apple Mac? Apple II??)

Not surprising, it's been around for a while.

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On Fri, 24 Jan 2014 13:40:00 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Fun thing: Apparently if you buy a Raspberry Pi, it now comes with a
>> free copy of Mathematica.
> 
>> Not some crippled version. The entire thing. For free.
> 
>> (Recall that to *buy* Mathematica is currently over ?8,000.)
> 
> I really have to wonder how they can afford doing that (I'm assuming
> this whole thing is completely legal.) Maybe they got some kind of odd
> deal with Wolfram Research.

Yes, it is exactly that - legit, legal, and direct from Wolfram.

Jim

-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 24/01/2014 06:40 PM, Warp wrote:
> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> Fun thing: Apparently if you buy a Raspberry Pi, it now comes with a
>> free copy of Mathematica.
>
>> Not some crippled version. The entire thing. For free.
>
>> (Recall that to *buy* Mathematica is currently over ?8,000.)
>
> I really have to wonder how they can afford doing that (I'm assuming
> this whole thing is completely legal.) Maybe they got some kind of
> odd deal with Wolfram Research.

It was Mr Wolfram's idea. He thought given that the Pi is geared towards 
education, it would be a cool idea to get all the kids used to using 
*his* premium-grade math package, so that when they grow up big and 
strong, they'll beg their employers to buy a full-price copy.

Kind of like how MS lets you have a free 30-day trial of Visual Studio, 
even though the thing actually costs thousands of pounds.

> It's just a bit odd, because there are free math software out there
> as well. Sure, most of them is not even nearly as good as Mathematica,
> but still...

I've never seen anything else that does what Mathematica does which 
isn't also klunky, kludgy and generally useless. (Then again, I haven't 
looked very extensively.)

Having said that, the GUI for Mathematica is real ugly. I suppose you 
have to expect that from such ancient software. But Jesus, put some 
anti-alias on that thing!!

The thing is, the symbolic computation engine in Mathematica can 
probably be implemented in a day or two of coding in just about any 
programming language by a half-competent person. What you *can't* easily 
duplicate is the man-decades of R&D that Wolfram Research has put into 
the libraries you get with Mathematica. I have no idea what the hell a 
generised hypergeometric function even *is* - but I can promise you 
Mathematica has a function for it...

It's easy to write a program that can do trivial algebra rearrangements. 
(I did it myself, when I was 17, using Borland Turbo Pascal.) Getting it 
to actually work right for _all_ simple expressions, though... that's 
really tricky. Getting it to be 100% correct all the time, in the face 
of possible division by zero, different number fields (complex vs real), 
taking into account the branch cuts of various functions... All of this 
is way more tricky than it initially appears.

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>> Fun thing: Apparently if you buy a Raspberry Pi, it now comes with a
>> free copy of Mathematica.
>>
>> Not some crippled version. The entire thing. For free.
>
> Yep.  Which reminds me, I need to check it out. :)

Alternatively, just install Raspbian on a PC emulator. ;-)

>> Also: Apparently the Raspberry Pi is _more powerful_ than the hardware
>> that Mathematica was originally released for. (Apple Mac? Apple II??)
>
> Not surprising, it's been around for a while.

Apparently the command-line version zips along quite nicely on a Pi, but 
the GUI is "a little sluggish - but still faster than the original Mac".

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Am 24.01.2014 19:40, schrieb Warp:
> Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Fun thing: Apparently if you buy a Raspberry Pi, it now comes with a
>> free copy of Mathematica.
>
>> Not some crippled version. The entire thing. For free.
>
>> (Recall that to *buy* Mathematica is currently over ?8,000.)
>
> I really have to wonder how they can afford doing that (I'm assuming
> this whole thing is completely legal.) Maybe they got some kind of
> odd deal with Wolfram Research.

That.

(It's not /exactly/ news; I had already posted about it recently.)

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On Fri, 24 Jan 2014 19:12:31 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> Fun thing: Apparently if you buy a Raspberry Pi, it now comes with a
>>> free copy of Mathematica.
>>>
>>> Not some crippled version. The entire thing. For free.
>>
>> Yep.  Which reminds me, I need to check it out. :)
> 
> Alternatively, just install Raspbian on a PC emulator. ;-)

I wonder how the performance would compare. :)

>>> Also: Apparently the Raspberry Pi is _more powerful_ than the hardware
>>> that Mathematica was originally released for. (Apple Mac? Apple II??)
>>
>> Not surprising, it's been around for a while.
> 
> Apparently the command-line version zips along quite nicely on a Pi, but
> the GUI is "a little sluggish - but still faster than the original Mac".

Not surprising, given the memory constraints on the pi.  Running openELEC 
on one here, 512 MB of RAM, looks like about half is used in normal 
circumstances.

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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>> Apparently the command-line version zips along quite nicely on a Pi, but
>> the GUI is "a little sluggish - but still faster than the original Mac".
>
> Not surprising, given the memory constraints on the pi.  Running openELEC
> on one here, 512 MB of RAM, looks like about half is used in normal
> circumstances.

Given that Mathematica is presumably all about compute-power, I'd be 
surprised if memory even came into the equation.

Also: It wasn't long ago that 512 MB of RAM was a luxury that only the 
very rich could afford. I would call that "contained".

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On Sat, 25 Jan 2014 22:02:18 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> Apparently the command-line version zips along quite nicely on a Pi,
>>> but the GUI is "a little sluggish - but still faster than the original
>>> Mac".
>>
>> Not surprising, given the memory constraints on the pi.  Running
>> openELEC on one here, 512 MB of RAM, looks like about half is used in
>> normal circumstances.
> 
> Given that Mathematica is presumably all about compute-power, I'd be
> surprised if memory even came into the equation.

Well, one might assume the graphing functions are going to be more about 
memory than about compute power.

> Also: It wasn't long ago that 512 MB of RAM was a luxury that only the
> very rich could afford. I would call that "contained".

Maybe 10 years ago.  It's amazing what progress brings, isn't it?  It 
wasn't that long ago (in geologic time) that rocks were the pinnacle of 
technological advancement, too.

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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