Some excellent answers here, so I'll just throw one more GIS into the mix viz. Idrisi.  Idrisi seems to be a very popular choice for Universitys and student teaching labs.  I haven't used it for ages but it is a very capable product and Clark Labs always used to have an academic discount, and I presume they still do.

GIS Software Choice for a small university research centre
For my calculations, I need increased precision of parameter 'k' in my Manipulate:

Manipulate[
 Plot[Cos[k x], {x, 0, 2 Pi}], {{k, 1}, 0, SetPrecision[4.0, 22], 
  SetPrecision[0.100, 22], Appearance -&gt; "Labeled"}]


However, at the same time, for aesthetic reasons, I want the label to the right of the slider to display only couple of digits.

How this could be done?
