I agree with Dave067 that Langtangen's "A Primer on Scientific Programming with Python" is an excellent textbook. I have had good luck in running his example programs. Like Dave067 I use Python 2.6.6 and IDLE 2.6.6. I use an HP desktop computer with Vista Home Premium Edition.

The installation file that I used for matplotlib is
matplotlib-1.0.1.win32-py2.6.exe
available on the web at
http://www.lfd.u...