The new generation of Macintosh computers is a milestone in the microcomputer industry, said Philippe Kahn this week – but then you have to say things like that if you are a guest at the launch party, don’t you. He was at the Appleworld Conference in Los Angeles on Monday to announce that Borland International Inc’s Eureka: The Solver equation-solving program would be available for the Macintosh someday soon. Eureka: The Solver is Borland’s first contribution to desktop engineering on the Macintosh, he declared. The company plans to introduce other products which will take full advantage of the new capabilities of the Macintosh II and SE computers, he added. Eureka, scheduled for release in the third quarter of 1987, is designed for anyone in the scientific, engineering, business and financial, and educational communities who needs fast, reliable solutions to real-world mathematical problems, and can use the 68881 co-processor option on the Macintosh II. Eureka can solve inequalities, plot graphs of functions, convert units automatically and solve equations that include the derivative operator and proper integrals. Eureka also includes the standard trigonometric functions, as well as logarithmic, exponential, statistical and financial functions, and solves linear equations. To solve a problem, the user simply enters the equation into the text editor input window and selects the Solve command to solve for the variables in the problem. It can evaluate the solution, plot a graph of it, and generate a report. The Find Other command enables a user to display all possible solutions to a problem. To look at an interesting point on the graph, the user can drag the mouse to select an area and then zoom in. Graphs can be plotted in black and white or colour. No price was given for it.