"Take home CAS" for students?

I'm currently revising a whole swag of undergraduate mathematics
syllabi, and looking at the place of a CAS within them. Ideally, I
would like students to have access to whatever software we use at their
homes, so that the use of the CAS is not just an "add on" they see
during their classes, but a vital part of their learning experience.

The problem is that many of my students are not wealthy, and so cost is
a major consideration. And I don't think it likely that the university
could afford to subsidise the use of software for home use. At the
moment we have several lab licences for Maple (we downgraded from a
site licence because that was getting too expensive).

For a while I was investigating MuPAD, and although I like MuPAD very
much as a system, it seems that market forces are pushing MuPAD to
becoming entirely commercial.

I've just started dipping my toes into Maxima, which is certainly good
for cost! but I don't know whether Maxima will support all our
teaching needs (which are heavily discrete maths based). I also don't
know how easy it is to extend Maxima - I've written plenty of functions
in Maple and MuPAD - but I've never written a line of lisp in my life.

If anybody would care to share their experiences with me, I'd be
delighted to hear them.

-Alasdair

.

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