Although the manufacturers of the Apple Macintosh contend that the Mac was never intended to be a toy, it has been little more than an entertaining desktop accessory for many scientists since it introduction in 1984. But Apple Computer Inc., realizing that the number of scientific and technical computer users is on the rise, set out a few years ago to develop software for the Mac that would be beneficial to this market.
And it looks as though the company is succeeding. in Apple’s now-yearly publication, Engineering/Scientific Solutions Guide (available at Apple outlets), more than 200 applications for the Mac, Mac 51 2E, Mac II, and Mac SE are listed.
Granted, some of the packages listed in the guide could be used by an accountant or an advertising copywriter as well as by a scientist— such as WriteNow, a word processing program, and Flexware, a database/programming application. And some are ...