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If your end goal is a plot, you might consider Gnuplot which is available for
Windows (and other machines). See, e.g.,
. The usual functions are included and
programming is relatively easy. And it's free.
In hindsight, you might have stayed with the Mac. OS X is built on Unix and
there are a number of free (or included) scripting languages (Perl,
Python, etc.) which can be used for programming.
-- Richard Langley

On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, george huxtable wrote:

>My sympathy goes to those deep-South Americans who have had to suffer first
>a natural disaster and then ineptitude of the rescue; not what one would
>expect in the richest country in the world. Perhaps list-members are now
>prepared to turn their attention back to our own, more trivial, concerns.
>
>================================
>
>Some recent postings on Nav-l have included listings of programs. This has
>prompted me to ask for suggestions from list members about suitable
>programs for doing simple calculations on a home computer. Not really a
>navigation question at all, it's true... But I suspect that others have had
>to face the same problems that face me.
>
>Forty-odd years ago, I had some exposure to Fortran on a mainframe. Since
>then, all my programming has been done using some dialect of Basic, on
>programmable calculators or computers. I'm not really a "programmer", in
>any real sense of the word, and writing programs is no more than a means to
>an end. What I enjoy is solving technical problems, and a computer is a
>necessary tool for that job.
>
>My favourite version of Basic was the old QuickBasic as supplied with PC's,
>years ago, when even home computers were actually expected to do some
>computing. You could label the lines when needed, rather than having to
>number them, and there were no restrictions on "go to" instructions, which
>seem to be regarded now in many quarters as particularly naughty. What's
>more, it had a superb manual.
>
>On my Mac, I used TrueBasic, which I rather disliked for the converse
>reasons; it imposed disciplines which irked me.
>
>I've recently migrated from an old Mac to a laptop running Windows XP. My
>new machine appears to offer no built-in programming (unless there's
>something hidden away that I haven't discovered yet).  This computer can do
>almost anything, except actually compute! So I need to find something, to
>do mostly mathematics (all the trig functions), to double precision, some
>statistics, and ideally with the ability to draw a bit of graphics as well.
>It doesn't have to be free software (though that's my preference) and there
>MUST be a decent printed manual available; I detest having to rely on
>on-line "help". I'd rather pay real money for the manual than for the software.
>
>Exploring around, I've picked up a copy of C++, which I haven't tried; just
>reading the manual was enough to convince me that all the guff about
>object-oriented programming was not for me. Was that the right decision?
>I'm quite prepared to learn a new language, even at my advanced age, if
>it's worthwhile doing so, but not if it's going to fade out and force me
>into learning yet another new language later on. More relevant, the manual
>I picked up, "C++ for Dummies", made no mention at all of any trig functions.
>
>My preference would be to find a version of Basic. Visual Basic seems, at a
>first glance, to be over-complex for my needs, and rather expensive. Is
>there something simpler out there?
>
>It's likely that others on Nav-l have been faced with the same problem, and
>can give a bit of advice about their own favourite software.
>
>George.
>===============================================================
>Contact George at george@huxtable.u-net.com ,or by phone +44 1865 820222,
>or from within UK 01865 820222.
>Or by post- George Huxtable, 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13
>5HX, UK.
>


===============================================================================
 Richard B. Langley                            E-mail: lang@unb.ca
 Geodetic Research Laboratory                  Web: http://www.unb.ca/GGE/
 Dept. of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering    Phone:    +1 506 453-5142
 University of New Brunswick                   Fax:      +1 506 453-4943
 Fredericton, N.B., Canada  E3B 5A3
     Fredericton?  Where's that?  See: http://www.city.fredericton.nb.ca/
===============================================================================

   

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