From help-octave-request at che dot utexas dot edu  Sun Oct 30 20:46:27 1994
Subject: Octave graphics and Octave in teaching laboratories
From: M dot Reid at phys dot canterbury dot ac dot nz (Mike Reid )
To: help-octave at che dot utexas dot edu
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 1994 15:46:14 +1300

Sorry to jump in with some possibly uniformed questions about Octave.

We (in Physics) and our Math colleagues are seriously considering using
Octave next year in (at least lower-level) teaching labs, in order to
not have to expand our Matlab license.

I wondered if anyone out there had any thoughts to share on this
topic.

The sorts of calculations I'm demonstrating don't make much use of
built-in Matlab functions, and of course the basic language constructs
are the same, so I have little difficulty with most parts of my
programs.

The big difference is the plotting. For the most part I don't see it as
too much of a problem --- both Matlab and Octave tend to require some
slightly confusing incantations to get the pictures :-)

However, in the release that I currently have availiable to me (0.79
--- we are installing 1.0 RSN...) there appears to be no way of
displaying two pictures at the same time. e.g. a function + fourier
transform. Is there this capability in 1.0, or upcoming versions?  In
Matlab I have been doing this with subplot. I know that sort of thing
is not supported by Gnuplot, but I'd be happy enough if I could just
have several graphics windows instead, presumably with multiple copies
of Gnuplot (?!).

Mike. 
--
Dr. Michael F. Reid,  M dot Reid at phys dot canterbury dot ac dot nz
Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. 
Phone: + 64 3 364 2548  Fax: + 64 3 364 2469