Use Sage and Sell Your Calculator before it is Too Late

This is an introduction to a piece of software called Sage that will allow you to sell your calculator ( assuming, of course, that you have a calculator ) and still do your calculations more easily than with your calculator ( you will need a computer, but if you are reading this perhaps you have one).  If you wait till everyone else figures this out it will be to late, calculators will be too cheap.

What Sage can do ( and some calculators can do some of these things )

     * Use algebraic symbols.
     * Record the calculations so they can be edited and rerun ( if for example you make a mistake or want to do a closely related calculation.
     * Save the calculation as a file ( which can be shared with other, or recalled by you).
     * Use cut and paste in manipulating the calculations.
     * Plot your calculation  ( you can even extract the plot as an image ).
     * Save values to memory for recall, as many values as you want, and with meaningful names
     * Use scientific notation ( also know as power of ten notation ).
     * Print the results.
     * Let you program in python in a very easy way.

Most of the space in this instructable is taken up with setting it up.  To cut to the chase and see how it works view the attached pdf file.  After viewing the file you may have more incentive to install it.

Step 1 Setting Up Sage

Sage really wants to run in Linux, if you use Linux you can probably easily go to the Sage site on the web find a version, download it and install.  Since the Mac OS is similar, it is also pretty much at home on the Mac.  Until recently Windows was a problem.  That has been fixed, at least for those of us with Windows 7 on a reasonably hefty machine.  I am only going to cover Windows, perhaps someone else will do an instructable on the other OS's.  This may also work on XP and Vista, but I have not actually tried it.  My computer is a year old i7 with 8 gig memory and Windows 7.

Comments

[pfred2]

I just checked and this software is not available with this particular version of my OS in its repository. I'll have to check on my newer machine to see if I can get it for it.

I mean I could compile it, but that just seems like too much work now.

[russ_hensel]

This has been my big problem with Sage. Compiling is not simple. Lots of the guys ( gals ) who run this seem to have very up to date machines, and support for older hardware and software is poor. This is fixed now for windows with the virtual box support. Perhaps virtual box will work for you too even if you are not running windows. If it works let us know the details. Or perhaps someone out there who know more about Sage and virtulization will package us up a machine.