(R) A QUICK TOUR OF MAPLE Maple is an essential tool for anyone who needs to use or study mathematics. In the next few pages you will get a glimpse of a few of the over 2000 Maple functions and what they can do for you. While this Maple Demonstration runs only on an 80386 or 80486 based machine, all the Maple commands appearing in this Tour are part of Maple on all other platforms including the Macintosh and Unix systems. Only the user interface varies from platform to platform. To run the demo on your computer, you will need an 80386 or 80486 based personal computer with 2MB or more memory and a CGA, EGA, VGA, or Hercules display adapter (for the graphics commands only). Although the Maple demonstration can be run directly from the floppy disk, it will perform much better (up to 50 times faster) if you copy it into a subdirectory on your hard disk first. This is because Maple loads library files from the disk, and makes use of the disk to provide virtual memory and to hold temporary files. The Maple Demonstration needs about 2MB of space on the disk for the program and files created during execution. Follow these steps to install Maple on your hard disk and run the demonstration: 1. Place the Maple Demonstration diskette in disk drive A. 2. Create a directory for Maple on your hard disk with a command like: MKDIR \MAPLE 3. Make the directory the current directory: CD \MAPLE 4. Copy the contents of the diskette into the current directory: COPY A:*.* 5. Run the Maple demonstration: MAPLE If you do want to run Maple from the floppy (if you don't have enough space on your hard disk, for example), follow these steps instead: 1. Place the Maple Demonstration diskette in disk drive A. 2. Make that disk drive the current drive with the command: A: 3. Start the Maple Demonstration by issuing the command: MAPLE Maple will take about 5 seconds to load from a hard disk, or about 30 seconds if you are running the Demonstration from the floppy disk. When you first start the Maple Demonstration, a copyright message and ordering information window will appear on your screen. After you have read the copyright notice, you can press one of two keys to begin. If you press Enter, the demo will automatically type in the examples for you; all you have to do is press Enter to execute each one. If you press the Space bar instead, the demo will run just like a full Maple session; you type the commands you want to execute. This assumes you have some familiarity with Maple on other platforms. In either case, you will be dealing with a real subset of Maple. This is NOT a recorded demo. The time it takes to solve each problem is the same as a full version of Maple would require to solve the same problem on your machine. Note that the Demonstration version of Maple contains only those portions of Maple necessary to run the Maple commands used in this Tour. Feel free to experiment by editing the parameters within commands, and by using the commands in combinations other than those used in the Tour. Do not be surprised if some things you try will not work. Maple is a large, complex, and powerful system. This small sample is designed to give you an opportunity to try only some of its capabilities. This demonstration version will not save files, DOS command line redirection and pipes are disabled, the MAPLEDIT program is not included, and only about 3% of the Maple Library and 3 help files have been included. This version will also not manipulate polynomials of degree greater than 20, and will display a message box to which you must respond whenever it performs storage reclamation. If you try something that the demonstration version cannot do, a message will be displayed indicating that the particular feature you invoked is not included. Maple is ready to accept input when the cursor (_) is blinking next to the prompt (>). You can then type the first Maple command described in this Tour. Whenever you finish typing a Maple command, type a semicolon (;) before pressing the Enter key. The semicolon tells Maple that the command is complete, whereas the Enter key tells Maple to accept your input. The distinction arises when you wish to type something that does not fit on a single line; you would then press Enter at the end of each line, and a semicolon only at the end of the last line. If you forget to type a semicolon before you press Enter, you can type the semicolon on the next line and press Enter again. If you make an error while typing a line and you have not yet pressed the Enter key, you can correct the error using the Left, Right, Home, End, BackSpace, Delete, and Insert keys, just as you would if you were using a text editor or word processor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ For more information, or to order, contact: MathSoft, Inc. 201 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02139 USA Telephone: (800) 628-4223 or (617) 577-1017 Fax: (617) 577-8829 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright(c) 1991 by Waterloo Maple Software