Legal Information and All
About MacEmatics
Program Operation
MacEmatics 3.0 requires a 68020 based Macintosh computer or better with color QuickDraw ROMs. This means a Mac II/LC class Mac or higher. It is perfectly stable on PowerPC based Macintoshes. MacEmatics requires 1 MB memory in standard mode. The install program will not install on a machine that has less than 8 MB of physical memory and System 7.0.
Standard mode is when the monitor is set to 256 colors and sounds are on. MacEmatics is optimized for 640 x 480 graphics and will be clipped if run on a 12" monitor. To use the animation files, you need QuickTime 1.6 or higher installed.
MacEmatics fully supports the Speech Manager. To use voices, you need to have the Speech Manager extension installed and any extra voices you wish to have recognized. See the Speech Manager documentation provided by Apple Computer for information on installation.
This is the license between Neil Schulman (“Author”) and you (“User”) for MacEmatics 3.0 (“Software”). This license is in effect from the time User first installs Software until User destroys all copies of Software and its associated files. Author reserves the right to modify this license at any time without any notice to User.
User is licensed to use Software for thirty days after receipt of the program. After this time, if User wishes to continue using Software, User must purchase a license from Author or one of Author's agents. User obtains a key to disable screens in Software that request registration.
Author, or any agent, is not liable for any damage or presumed damage caused by, or presumed to be caused by, Software or any related file included with the original official release of Software. Any alterations of an original official release of Software by any source or party automatically nullifies any claim against Author and any agents.
In other words, you agree by using Software that Author and any agents are not responsible if an outside party tampered or otherwise changed any part of Software. You also are agreeing that you are prevented from seeking relief from Author or any agents in a court of law by using this software. If you do not agree to the terms, you must destroy all copies of Software.
Registration of Software does not change the conditions of the license, however registration does entitle User to support via the methods outlined in the Contact Information section of this manual.
MacEmatics 3.0 is copyrighted software. It is copyright ©1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1998 by Neil Schulman. All rights worldwide are reserved. Any use other than that authorized by Neil Schulman is prohibited. The MacEmatics name will be registered as a trademark this year.
Some of the terms, products, and processes mentioned in all applications, documentation, and supporting files may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
MacEmatics has a number of new features that have been added to make testing easier, more productive, and with a lot more control than has been previously possible in other mathematics programs. Many of these features were added by request of registered users, and some of these were added by people who wanted them before they'd buy the program. Now you have no excuse. :-) The following are distinctive features in MacEmatics 3.0.
This is in addition to the wide variety of features already available in MacEmatics:
This program is not designed to be an edutainment program. While the program is not dry or uninteresting, the primary goal is to educate the user. This value is demonstrated by the lack of many “bells and whistles” seen in other programs such as arcade games, sophisticated animated cartoon characters, and other such things. Although this program may not be as fun to use as those programs, the intention is to grow the user in their understanding and performance in mathematics.
The target audience consists of children in grades K-8. This target audience also includes adults in GED programs and any person needing to maintain or gain skills in the areas that MacEmatics provides.
MacEmatics supports a wide variety of tests and conditions. From simple arithmetic to complex fractions and variables. MacEmatics presents a simplified education-centered interface for learning.
This goal is supported through the method that tests are generated, how they are processed, and how the program gives its responses. With MacEmatics, you can retain preferences and testing information for a number of users. This testing information includes boundaries you might set up and environmental preferences.
To aid the educator, there are several options that assist in the process like right to left text, larger text sizes, listing of questions and answers, and generation of written tests for students. And more.
The program is set up in a question and answer format. You provide initial setup information to allow the program to design a test that suits the requirements you set forth. Upon entering the basic information, the program begins by presenting the first problem for you to answer. You type in the answer and MacEmatics judges its accuracy. There is instantaneous feedback to you of the veracity of the answer. When you finish a test, you can view the test questions and answer (and any mistakes you made) by clicking the Tally button on the toolbar.
HelpOn-line help is provided directly via the help button on the toolbar of the main MacEmatics window. Select this and you will be presented with a window that will allow you to see various help topics. The on-line help provides much of the same information as in this manual for quick lookup.
PreferencesYou have many preferences with which you can control how MacEmatics behaves during a session. To modify the preferences, click the preferences button on the main toolbar. Here you will see a tabbed dialog box containing the preferences for the current user selected in the User Manager dialog box. Please note that these settings activate immediately, but some will not activate until a new test is started. Also, if your computer crashes (never happens on a Macintosh, right?) your changes will not be saved. The changes are saved on program exit.
When you enter the preferences dialog box, you will see a screen similar to the one below.
You have three tabs across the top of the window. They are “General”, “Text”, and “Speech.” These tabs have preferences that relate to the tab. The default tab, “General” allows you to select general options that affect the whole program environment.
Options
The second tab, “Text,” allows you to modify the text aspects of the program.
Options
The Right To Left Text option is a useful option for those who are starting to learn addition and subtraction. It lets them type numbers from the one's column to the ten's column and so on. This way once the pupil has answered the number for the first column, they will not wonder why the text suddenly shifts when they attempt to answer the second column.
The last tab, “Speech,” lets you modify the speaking preferences. Speech in MacEmatics requires that you have the Speech Manager installed on the Macintosh. See your Apple documentation for information on installing Speech Manager and MacInTalk.
Options
Note: Currently there is a bug in the software that prevents the list of available voices from displaying the first time you go to the tab, the first time you edit preferences. To see them, click on another tab and then click back on “Speech.” Speech support will improve in successive versions.
BoundariesBoundaries are the means by which you can control the numbers MacEmatics chooses for each test. Each test level has its own boundaries that are pre-selected for you. However, sometimes you may want to change the defaults when you want to create a specific type of test. For example, say you want to create a test where you drill the student on multiplying by 3s. In ordinary programs, you don't have an option for selecting a number to work with. In MacEmatics, you open the boundaries dialog box and change the arithmetic boundaries to isolate the number you want.
The concept for how you isolate numbers is very straight forward. MacEmatics always presents two numbers for the student to answer. So you have a first number and a second number. You can specify limits on these numbers, limiting the range MacEmatics will choose from while running the test. In this way, you can create tests like those mentioned above. In that example, you could put in 3 for the upper limit and 3 for the lower limit in the first number box shown below. Then click on the check boxes to say you want to use the limit. Then MacEmatics will always use the number 3 for first number in all arithmetic operations.
Because each type of number is handled a little differently, you can also select boundaries that are specific for fractions and percents. Fractions boundaries let you control all numerators and denominators. Percents permits you to control percent ofs (when doing a test to drill percent operations) and the number you're working with on those percents. An example of when that is useful is when a student is first starting to learn percents. By isolating the percent number to 100 for the upper and lower boundary, all the percent of questions will be merely whole number values easily calculated by the student.
These are the default limits per level that MacEmatics will choose.
Level 1:
Arithmetic[Upper 1] = 10;
Arithmetic[Upper 2] = 10;
Fractions[Numerator Upper1] = 10;
Fractions[Denominator Upper1] = 10;
Fractions[Numerator Upper2] = 10;
Fractions[Denominator Upper2] = 10;
Percent[Upper 1] = 100;
Percent Of Number (x% of)[Upper 1] = 100;
Percent Of Number (x% of)[kLower1] = 100;
Variable[Upper Limit]=10
Level 2:
Arithmetic[Upper 1] = 25;
Arithmetic[Upper 2] = 25;
Fractions[Numerator Upper1] = 25;
Fractions[Denominator Upper1] = 25;
Fractions[Numerator Upper2] = 25;
Fractions[Denominator Upper2] = 25;
Percent[Upper 1] = 100;
Percent Of Number (x% of)[Upper 1] = 200;
Variable[Upper Limit]=50
Level 3:
Arithmetic[Upper 1] = 50;
Arithmetic[Upper 2] = 50;
Fractions[Numerator Upper1] = 50;
Fractions[Denominator Upper1] = 50;
Fractions[Numerator Upper2] = 50;
Fractions[Denominator Upper2] = 50;
Percent[Upper 1] = 150;
Percent Of Number (x% of)[Upper 1] = 250;
Variable[Upper Limit]=100
Level 4:
Arithmetic[Upper 1] = 100;
Arithmetic[Upper 2] = 100;
Fractions[Numerator Upper1] = 75;
Fractions[Denominator Upper1] = 75;
Fractions[Numerator Upper2] = 75;
Fractions[Denominator Upper2] = 75;
Percent[Upper 1] = 200;
Percent Of Number (x% of)[Upper 1] = 500;
Variable[Upper Limit]=250
Level 5:
Arithmetic[Upper 1] = 500;
Arithmetic[Upper 2] = 500;
Fractions[Numerator Upper1] = 100;
Fractions[Denominator Upper1] = 100;
Fractions[Numerator Upper2] = 100;
Fractions[Denominator Upper2] = 100;
Percent[Upper 1] = 500;
Percent Of Number (x% of)[Upper 1] = 1000;
Variable[Upper Limit]=500
Level 6:
Arithmetic[Upper 1] = 1000;
Arithmetic[Upper 2] = 1000;
Fractions[Numerator Upper1] = 200;
Fractions[Denominator Upper1] = 200;
Fractions[Numerator Upper2] = 200;
Fractions[Denominator Upper2] = 200;
Percent[Upper 1] = 1000;
Percent Of Number (x% of)[Upper 1] = 1000;
Variable[Upper Limit]=1000
Level 7:
Arithmetic[Upper 1] = 5000;
Arithmetic[Upper 2] = 5000;
Fractions[Numerator Upper1] = 500;
Fractions[Denominator Upper1] = 500;
Fractions[Numerator Upper2] = 500;
Fractions[Denominator Upper2] = 500;
Percent[Upper 1] = 1500;
Percent Of Number (x% of)[Upper 1] = 5000;
Variable[Upper Limit]=5000
Level 8:
Arithmetic[Upper 1] = 10000;
Arithmetic[Upper 2] = 10000;
Fractions[Numerator Upper1] = 1000;
Fractions[Denominator Upper1] = 1000;
Fractions[Numerator Upper2] = 1000;
Fractions[Denominator Upper2] = 1000;
Percent[Upper 1] = 3000;
Percent Of Number (x% of)[Upper 1] = 10000;
Variable[Upper Limit]=10000
Level 9:
Arithmetic[Upper 1] = 50000;
Arithmetic[Upper 2] = 50000;
Fractions[Numerator Upper1] = 9999;
Fractions[Denominator Upper1] = 9999;
Fractions[Numerator Upper2] = 9999;
Fractions[Denominator Upper2] = 9999;
Percent[Upper 1] = 6000;
Percent Of Number (x% of)[Upper 1] = 50000;
Variable[Upper Limit]=50000
Level 10:
Arithmetic[Upper 1] = 100000;
Arithmetic[Upper 2] = 100000;
Fractions[Numerator Upper1] = 99999;
Fractions[Denominator Upper1] = 99999;
Fractions[Numerator Upper2] = 99999;
Fractions[Denominator Upper2] = 99999;
Percent[Upper 1] = 100000;
Percent Of Number (x% of)[Upper 1] = 100000;
Variable[Upper Limit]=100000
Below you see the various types of boundaries you can set in the Boundaries dialog box.
User ManagerThe User Manager is the mechanism in MacEmatics to change `profiles'. A profile is the term for the collection of display preferences, sound and animation preferences, testing information, and boundaries for an individual. Currently, by default, MacEmatics handles up to 10 profiles. A MacEmatics that handles 500 profiles is available upon request. See the contact information in this manual. When this button is clicked, you see the following screen.
This is the default appearance of the user manager. When you first run MacEmatics, it names all the profiles for you. You can rename the profile from here by clicking on the Rename button. You can also rename a profile by typing in a name on the first screen of the TestWizard. See Starting a Test, TestWizard Step 1 for more information on this. To select a profile, click on it in the listing and then click the Select button. Once a profile is activated all the preferences, boundaries, and other testing information becomes immediately active.
Tally AnswersWhen a test has been completed, use this button to see the answers to the test. You are only able to see the answers after a successful completion of a test, not anytime before. The tally includes the following information:
This listing can be printed for grading or for review.
Start Test ButtonTo start a test, click on the button on the MacEmatics toolbar. This starts the TestWizard where you enter in specific information about the test you want to take.
In this screen, you enter information about yourself. Places are put in for typing your name and grade. You're limited to 29 characters for your name and 14 characters for your grade. This helps MacEmatics in identifying you when tallying the tests. It also helps your parent or teacher identify that you completed this test.
You also enter in the test level you wish to do on this test. MacEmatics always remembers your previous tests and will bring up either the default test (if you've never run MacEmatics before or switch to a new user) or your last one.
You will notice four buttons on the bottom of the screen. Previous, Next, Finish and Cancel.
Previous: Disabled because this is the first step.
Next: Go to Step 2 to change information there
Finish: Go with what was previously entered on the next screens and change only what was done on this screen. This takes you immediately to testing.
Cancel: Do nothing.
Here, you enter information about the types of tests you want to complete. As you will see, they are checkboxes. This means you can select one or more operations to complete during the test. You can select, for example, to have addition and subtraction questions during the test. You have five operations you can choose from:
See the section on the test types for more information about what these tests do.
You will notice four buttons on the bottom of the screen. Previous, Next, Finish and Cancel.
Previous: Go to Step 1 to change information there
Next: Go to Step 3 to change information there
Finish: Go with what was previously entered on the next screens and change only what was done on this screen (and previous screen(s)). This takes you immediately to testing.
Cancel: Do nothing.
Here you enter information about the numbers you want to use with the test operations you chose in the previous step. This gives you a lot of flexibility in how the tests work together. You can select numbers of the following type:
1. Whole Numbers (like 1, 2, 3)
2. Decimal Numbers (like 1.5, 2.8, 3.9)
3. Fractional Numbers (like 1/2, 3/4, 4/5)
4. Percentage Numbers (like 45%, 35%, 99%)
You can also choose whether you want these numbers to always be positive, always be negative, or MacEmatics' choice.
This can be a little confusing, so let me give you an example. Suppose you choose Addition and Subtraction operations in Step 2 and Whole Numbers here with both Positive and Negative checkboxes checked. You might get these questions on your test:
1 + 1 = ?
2 + -1 = ?
3 - 1 = ?
4 - -2 = ?
-5 + -6 = ?
-6 - 1 = ?
Note, the operation is NOT the same for fractions tests. To make life easier for me, I decided to have the meaning of the positive and negative checkboxes be different. Instead what it means is what you want the RESULT of the fraction operation to be. In some cases it may not be useable like during an addition test! Still, it's good for the other tests. An example would be like:
1/2 - 3/4 = -1/4
You will notice four buttons on the bottom of the screen. Previous, Next, Finish and Cancel.
Previous: Go to Step 2 to change information there
Next: Go to Step 4 to change information there
Finish: Go with what was previously entered on the next screens and change only what was done on this screen (and previous screen(s)). This takes you immediately to testing.
Cancel: Do nothing.
Here you enter information about the number of questions you want to have asked to you. You can also choose to have MacEmatics make this a timed test. That is, force you to answer the questions in a given period of time.
If you choose to have timed tests, you can select the time interval to be per question or per test. Per question timing will help reinforce quick thinking, while per test timing will aid you in regimenting yourself through a test. You can select a time interval, too. And have it in minutes or seconds.
You will notice four buttons on the bottom of the screen. Previous, Next, Finish and Cancel.
Previous: Go to Step 3 to change information there
Next: Disabled because this is the last step.
Finish: This takes you immediately to testing and saves your information.
Cancel: Do nothing.
Stop Test ButtonWhile you are taking a test, you may for whatever reason wish to stop the testing. To do this, click on the stoplight button. The program will ask you to confirm this and then stop the test. When a test is stopped, it cannot be restarted. You will not be able to review your test results, either. However, the test you started is the test that will be `remembered' for the next test you take. Only if you cancel a TestWizard will the test parameters you altered not be saved.
This program has had history and help in its design. The original version of this program (and the subsequent ones) were inspired by an idea my brother, a teacher, had to aid students in learning math skills. This simple version handled arithmetic only with cute sounds and was written in HyperCard 2.0. While this program generated numerous comments from the public, no shareware registrations (although two school districts asked me about site license availability and costs) came in. After consulting with my brother, many of these suggestions became integrated into the program and has evolved to this current incarnation of the application. Beta testers of this version have provided valuable information on making MacEmatics a better program for children and for learning. MacEmatics originally had provisions for 6 levels of difficulty with the ability of the user to change parameters at will. Those versions also could only handle addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
The 2.x versions were based written using C/C++ and was designed for simplicity for the user and still make it more fun. This version took a long time to write.
This new 3.0 version of MacEmatics was completely re-written in pure C++ using the PowerPlant application framework in Metrowerks CodeWarrior 11. It supports Apple's new Grayscale Interface and more!
This program has been designed and programmed by Neil Schulman. I am a 1995 graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. I have been programming for over five years and programming on the Macintosh for the past four. I currently work for Computational Systems Incorporated as an International Software Engineer.
I have produced a number of shareware and freeware applications for the Macintosh community including the widely downloaded Frosty, an Adobe Photoshop filter, and MacPredictions, a freeware game.
You can send me email to nwcs@kagi.com or nwcs@usit.net. This is the best way to get a hold of me.
You may also look on my web site to find the latest released version of MacEmatics. http://www.public.usit.net/nwcs. Releases are also sent to Info-Mac mirror sites. Just like in the old days of internet...