Mathcad Introduction
Run Mathcad (it should be on the menu of engineering programs somewhere)
Under the Help Menu, use the tutorials to learn about Mathcad.
Downoad the example file
mathcadIntro-7jan06b.mcd
to your machine.
Do NOT
run the example program from inside Intrnet Exploorer.
Instead, download the file using mouse-right-click save-target-as, then run Mathcad and open the file from within Mathcad.
If you do not have access to Mathcad, you can view a pdf version of the example in
mathcadIntro-7jan06b.pdf
Load the example file using the Mathcad File::Load function from the menu bar at the top of Mathcad
Use the View::Toolbars menu item to view the toolbars shown below
Read through the example and experiment with the plotting axes and functions
Use the Mathcad Help menu item to learn more
Be careful on the use of "equal signs"
Use the ":" key on your keyboard for the ":=" sign that defines a function
Use the "=" sign on your keyboard to evaluate something to get a numerical result
Use "shift+period" to symbolically evaluate something to get a non-numeric answer (i.e., to "do" an integral)
Mathcad is not perfect. It will give wrong answers. So, it is important for you to use engineering judgement when evaluating results. For example, if you take 2 times 2 on your calculator and get 1,000,000, you know not to "trust" the answer.