Using maxima for high school mathematics



On Sun, Apr 03, 2011 at 11:02:33PM +0100, Leo Butler wrote:
> < into a file or something so it doesn't need to be done each time?
> < Anyway, I'll have a go at it when I get home this afternoon.
>  
>  Yes, just copy the input lines without the input labels into a
>  file (it is usual to end the file name with a .mac ending).
>  In Maxima:

Ok, I get these errors when running the load command in maxima:
(%i1) batch (findeq.mac);

Maxima encountered a Lisp error:

 Error in PROGN [or a callee]: ((MNCTIMES SIMP) $FINDEQ $MAC) cannot be
 coerced to a namestring.

Automatically continuing.
To enable the Lisp debugger set *debugger-hook* to nil.

The file contains the following lines:
load(lsquares);
lsqn(data,n):=block([poly,a,coeffs,x,est,mse,model],
            poly:sum(x^i*a[i],i,0,n),coeffs:delete(x,listofvars(poly)),
            est:lsquares_estimates(data,[x,y],y = poly,coeffs),
            model:subst(est[1],poly),
            mse:sum((data[i,2]-subst(x = data[i,1],model))^2,i,1,length(data))
                /length(data),
           [model,mse])$
data : genmatrix(lambda([x,y], if y=1 then x else
(1+2*x+3*x^2)),6,2);

Once this is actually working how can I put my own data points in? 

Thanks,
Dan