The Dead Zone: Mac statistics software that appears to have been abandoned for quite some time

DataDesk

Configurations: 680x0 without FPU; 680x0 with FPU; PowerPC native; OS X; Universal promised by end of 2006 (yes, we know it’s 2009 now)
Current Version: 6.2 (OS X), 6.1 (OS 7-9)
Price: $715 normal, $430 academic (DataDesk).
Listing updated: 4/14/2008

An exploratory data analysis package, DataDesk is PowerPC-native but the company claims Intel support other than the random number generator. Support is claimed for “OS X 10.2 and higher.” (800) 573-5121, +1-607-257-1000.

A demo version is available. The Mac version is at parity with the Windows version but neither has been updated for a while. DataDesk also sells as an Excel plug-in, DataDesk XL, on both Mac and PC (it may not be compatible with Excel 2007/2008). The strength and weakness of DataDesk is its visual environment:

Data Desk brings fast, easy-to-use visual analysis to your desktop. It provides interactive graphical tools for exploring and understanding your data—for finding the patterns, relationships, and exceptions. While it implements many traditional statistics techniques suitable for data from planned experiments and sample surveys, Data Desk’s true strength is its powerful tools for data exploration. ... speed and linked views make Data Desk an unsurpassable tool for exploring any set of data—from a few hundred cases to a few million. ... Select points in one plot or table and see those points highlight instantly in all other plots. Modify a data value or parameter and see all relevant plots and table update immediately...

Dick Furnas wrote:

DataDesk was developed by Paul Velleman, Professor in Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor relations and a student of John Tukey from Bell Labs and inventor of many ideas and principles of exploratory data analysis. ... DataDesk is superb for exploratory data analysis. A student version is bundled with several textbooks Velleman has been involved in. DataDesk was originally developed for the Mac and makes splendid use of drag and drop, clickable, live interfaces and everything a Mac user might wish for (you can lasso points in a graph and the data values from the underlying data tables will be highlighted, and vice/versa).

MacCurveFit

Configurations Available: 68000; 680x0 + FPU; PowerPC native
Current Version: 1.5.5
Price: Shareware, Australian $50
Listing update: 5-17-07
Software appears to have been abandoned in 2003

MacCurveFit is a package that does one thing: fit a regression curve to any user defined function using least squares. It was developed by Kevin Raner Software in Australia. There is a Windows version that appears to have ceased development at the same time as the Mac version (sometime in 2003), which is listed as being compatible with System 7 and up but is almost certainly not OS X native. You can apparently download a test version to see if it works. Pricing remains the same as it was in 2003.

The site says: "MacCurveFit is a scientific least squares curve fitting program. Data sets can be entered into a spreadsheet window, imported from programs like Excel or extracted from text files. Any function may then be fitted to the data and the fit displayed graphically. The functions can be defined by typing them as text and so the program is very flexible. There is also a choice of mathematical algorithms that can be used for curve fitting."

StatisticS (data mining software)

Configurations: Windows; Linux; 68K, PPC, and Universal Binary (OS 7 still available!)
Pricing: 50 euros ($66 at time of writing)
Current Version: 4.3
Listing updated: 12/2009 (thanks, Bill Prinzmetal and Olivier Mericq)

StatisticS had a full graphical interface, does a decent variety of analyses (no regression but it has survival and various comparison tests), and the company infers it’s geared to doctors looking to publish their results. It will run under Rosetta but with the usual potential accuracy issues. Data can be shown in spreadsheet mode and can be imported from Excel; it is smart enough to ask whether the first line contains value labels and the second contains definitions. Charting is instant and rather good and it's easy to restrict analyses by condition; clicking on a bar or a point of a chart leads you to the data window, and clicking in this window leads you to the complete observation. Overall it’s a good buy - a bargain if you need what it can do - even if it requires some forethought to work with. As of 12/17/09, the company's web site had disappeared.

Xlisp-Stat

Configurations Available: 68000; 68020; 680x0 with FPU; PowerPC native; X11
Current Version: 3.52 ?
Price: Free

XLisp-Stat is a statistics toolkit for researchers that is available on the Mac, MS-Windows and various UNIX systems (with the X window system). It was developed by Luke Tierney, University of Minnesota School of Statistics. The software home page was last updated in the 1990s and the FTP link doesn't work. The program seems to have stalled.

Lisp-Stat is an extensible statistical computing environment for data analysis, statistical instruction and research, ... Extensibility is achieved by basing Lisp-Stat on the Lisp language. ... Implementations of XLISP-STAT ... are available for the Macintosh, UNIX systems running X11, and for MS Windows.

MacOS Classic software

If you have any of this software already and want to run it, try using a Mac OS emulator such as SheepShaver (for OS 9), or vMac (for OS 6 or 7). Without an emulator, few of these programs can be run on a current Mac.

Package	Compatiblity, last version	Notes
AppleTree	68020, PPC; v. 1.34	Free program for fitting multinomial binary tree models to frequency data; it can read model files and data files written for the MS-DOS "MBT" program. We can't find it now.
BuildSim	68K, PPC; v 2.0	BuildSim is a system design, simulation and analysis package available both in free and commercial versions. It was developed by Tritera but we can't find their site or software now.
BMDP	?	Purchased by SPSS; Mac version dropped; sold by SPSS; don’t we love SPSS?
Cricket Graph	68K; v. 1.32 and III	Cricket Graph 1.32 still works on PowerPC machines via Classic mode. It remains one of the easiest to use graphing programs ever designed, and has extremely fast regression curve fitting (even on an 8 MHz Plus) that is easy to set up with polynomial designs. CricketGraph files can reportedly be read by DataGraph (see our graphing page).
Data Loom	PowerPC	Data Loom is a free data visualization program for multivariate data by Carl Manaster.
FloStat	68K; v2.0	Last updated around 2000, FloStat provided basic analysis. Though not updated in the 21st Century, it is published by Senecio Software. (It was still posted on their site in late 2009).
GLMstat	PowerPC OS 9, X v. 6.0	GLMStat is a $25 shareware package for generalized linear models with a graphic suer interface. Features include spreadsheet-style data entry, a large variety of plots and diagrams, descriptive and other statistics, and saving of model specifications. Downloads and registration are at the GLMStat web page. Development was dropped around 2005 with no possibility for Intel versions.
LISREL	PPC; v. 8.7	LISREL ("LInear Structural RELations") was developed by Karl Jöreskog and Dag Sörbom; for many years, LISREL was synonymous with structural equation modeling. Version 8.7 was available for $445 in early 2006, with OS X and OS 8/9 compatibility; when we checked again in June 2008, all mentions of Mac versions were gone.
MacCATI	v 2.5	Last updated around 2000, MacCati was designed for web- and self-administered surveys, and runs in Java.
MacCurveFit	68K, PPC; v. 1.5.5	MacCurveFit fits a regression curve to any user defined function using least squares. It is listed as being compatible with System 7. The site says: "MacCurveFit is a scientific least squares curve fitting program. Data sets can be entered into a spreadsheet window, imported from programs like Excel or extracted from text files. Any function may then be fitted to the data and the fit displayed graphically. The functions can be defined by typing them as text and so the program is very flexible. There is also a choice of mathematical algorithms that can be used for curve fitting."
MacSpin	68K: v3.1d3	MacSpin is three-dimensional data visualization program that was the first such program for the Macintosh (and perhaps any personal computer). It is available as freeware from Donoho Design Group.
MathCAD	“Classic”	This is a general purpose math program that was never brought up to OS X. The link for “platforms” on their site leads to various flavors of Windows.
Minitab	68K, PPC; v.10	Minitab is a general-purpose statistics package mostly used in education; Minitab confirmed that development would stop in 1997.
SAS	PPC; v.6.12	SAS is a general-purpose statistics package distributed by SAS Institute Inc. SAS is supposed to work well in Classic but we have not tested it. SAS announced that there will be no Mac updates.
Statistica	68K; 4.1	StatSoft program; development appears to have stopped in 1997. As of May 2007, it was still listed for sale on their web site. Caveat emptor, indeed!
STATsimple	68K; 2.05	$25 shareware that provides descriptive stats, histogram plot, student’s t-test and linear regression, developed by Chris Pereira. The fully functional (i.e., registered) version supports a 25x200 data matrix.
StatView	68K, PPC; v5	Oh, how we miss StatView from Abacus Concepts! SAS bought the company and then dropped support in 2003. StatView was very fast, provided many statistical operations, and was easy to use, but did not have a syntax language. It was similar to SuperANOVA.
SuperANOVA	68K	See StatView description...
Systat	68K; v5.21	Another program dropped when SPSS Inc. bought it. SPSS later sold MyStat and SyStat to Cranes of India, which does not sell a Mac version of SyStat. A former SPSS employee wrote, “most of the developers that helped build the back end are in no way connected with the present company.”
ViSta	68K, PPC; v. 5.6	Free program by Forrest Young of UNC, still available (thanks, Sherm Garrison!) from this web site but has not apparently been updated since 1999. The source code is available for anyone who wants to bring it into the 21st Century!