[IAEP] wolfram's mathematica

[Robert Myers]

> wolfram's mathematica page says:
> *Mathematica* has been ported to the OLPC "$100 laptop"
> http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/analysis/content/MathEducationSoftware.html
> 
> I can't see it on the activities page - does anyone have information about
> this?

Mathematica is available for Linux so I'd assume that you could load and 
run it on an XO in a windowing environment.

 From the Mathematica site>>>

Linux x86
   	Linux 2.4 or later 	32-bit, 64-bit
   	Mathematica 6 has been fully tested on all major Linux distributions 
based on the 2.4 Linux kernel. On newer Linux distributions, additional 
compatibility libraries may need to be installed.

What are the minimal hardware requirements of Mathematica?

Mathematica adapts very well to a variety of environments and is capable 
of taking advantage of whatever resources are made available to it. The 
minimum requirements are very small and so Mathematica should be able to 
run on any of the supported platforms.

Mathematica requires very little memory to start up, but once you start 
performing large calculations, the memory requirements can grow quickly. 
The exact memory requirements cannot be provided since it depends on the 
problem being tackled. Simple calculations require very little memory, 
but large calculations such as large matrix operations and graphics may 
require more. Keep the problem to be solved in mind when choosing a 
computer on which to install Mathematica.

The following table represents a good place to start for beginning 
calculations in Mathematica and should allow small- to medium-sized 
calculations to be carried out without any problems.

     Download Size	500 MB*
     Minimum Memory Requirement	256 MB
     Recommended Memory	512 MB or greater
     Hard Drive	3.0 GB*

Please note that the required hard drive space reduces to 1.5* GB if you 
delete the downloaded installer and the copy that the installer creates 
of itself in /Wolfram Research/Downloads after you have successfully 
installed Mathematica to your machine.

Most computers purchased today easily meet these requirements so minimum 
system requirements should not be a concern in most cases.
* Size requirements vary from one file system to another.
<<<

It is commercial software though, and so you're not likely to ever find 
it on the Activities page.
What are the minimal hardware requirements of Mathematica?

Great software, but I'd say it plays to an audience older than OLPC's 
target. Also, at Wolfram's price of $140 for a student license, it's 
likely to be way out of the price league for the typical OLPC target.

The original version ran on 16MHz 68020 Macs with a math coprocessor. It 
would be interesting to explore if Wolfram would be willing to allow a 
free or low-price version based on an earlier version of the software.

Bob