[OS X TeX] Graphing Calculator for OS X

[david craig]

Graphing Calculator has finally been made available for OS X!
<http://www.pacifict.com/Order.html>

It's a little pricey ($60 educational), but all along the developer has 
argued it was too expensive to port.  (The program had deep roots in 
QuickDraw, apparently, and he had rip all that out and replace it with 
OpenGL.)  It can do way more than most people ever realized, so do check 
it out.  I always had a MUCH easier time getting students to use it than 
I ever did Maple or Mathematica, so I loved having it on lab computers 
as well as using it for lecture demos.

I'm thrilled.  Graphing Calculator is one of those applications that was 
perhaps a victim of its own simplicity -- it looks so simple that it's 
very easy to miss just how much it can do.  I used it all the time for 
classroom demonstrations, creating QuickTime movies, and doing simple 
visualiztions before (often instead of) firing up Maple or Mathematica, 
even in my research.

I've been using Curvus Pro under OS X, which had some nice features, but 
overall I am delighted GC has returned to OS X.  (Some of you may know 
that Curvus was bought by Apple for inclusion in Tiger -- I think 
they'll be calling it "Graphing Calculator" [:-)] Actually, I thought 
that was sad, because it almost certainly means that as an application 
Curvus is not going to get much further attention or development. 
Those kinds of accessories Apple usually almost totally ignores.  Just 
look at how awful OS X's calculator STILL is.  It can't even add 
correctly!)

And no, I have no affiliation with Graphing Calculator.  I have bugged 
the developer to develop the OS X version, so I feel a little 
responsible that way, but other than that I just think it's an 
application that deserves more attention and respect than perhaps it 
got.

David Craig


<http://www.panix.com/~dac/>
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