The Dead Zone: Mac statistics software that appears to have been abandoned
EQS
Configurations Available: PowerPC for Mac OS 8 (discontinued); UNIX (runs on Macs in Terminal mode, command line only); no Mac support now.
Current Version: 6.1 (as of 1-24-06)
Listing updated: 12/2010
EQS was developed by Peter Bentler but is now distributed by MVSoft. On OS X, the UNIX version runs under the command line. In Europe, EQS is distributed by ProGamma.
The EQS web site now proclaims:
Due to incompatibilities between EQS for Macintosh and versions 9 and 10 of the Mac operating systems, we have discontinued sales of EQS for Mac.
Even though just after that they wrote:
EQS 6 for Mac UNIX is currently available and will work on any Mac with OS X. Unlike other Mac products with a graphical user interface, it, however, will only work in the UNIX mode of the Mac OS X.
MX
Mac OS X, Linux, many other versions
Current version: 1.55 (parity)
Last revised: April 19, 2004
Listing updated: 12-15-2010
Mx is a very cross-platform package that even has an on-line and Unix server version; it is written by Michael Neal. While there is a graphic user interface for Windows, the writer recommends doing a server installation to allow for a graphic interface. (Thanks, Stephen J. Read) — consigned to the dead zone, though still available, in August 2010 due to six years without an update.
PlainStat
Current Version: beta
Configurations Available: OS X, PPC or Intel
Listing updated: 11-13-08
It can do correlations, frequencies, descriptives, reliability, various t-tests, ANOVA, linear and canonical regression, factor analysis, K-means clustering, chi-squares, and various nonparametric tests. Plainstat is created and designed by Iyus A. Muslimin, statistician and Mac developer, who lived in Bandung, Indonesia.
Data is hard to type into the spreadsheet-style database at this point, but can easily be copied from spreadsheets such as Excel. Analysis is quick for small data sets and appears in an easy to read output bin in the main (and only) window; each analysis is added to a "table of contents" on the left side, along with the data. Output can be copied, but only without the column headings; it can also be exported to a tab-delimited plain text file for import into spreadsheets (or word processors, but since decimal points are fixed, that might not look very good). Data and value labels can be added via an inspector, a rare find in a free, simple program.
PlainStat might really be all you need — keeping in mind we have not yet verified its results by checking against a more established package. We're waiting with baited breath for the first release, which we hope will also have a facility for setting value and variable labels en masse.
The web site had been given up when we checked back in 2013.
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 7-9), 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; file-compatible with the MS-DOS "MBT" program. |
| BuildSim | 68K, PPC; v 2.0 |
System design, simulation and analysis package developed by Tritera. |
| BMDP | ? | Purchased by SPSS; Mac version dropped; sold by SPSS. |
| Cricket Graph | 68K; v. 1.32 and III | Cricket Graph 1.32 works in Classic. It is still one of the easiest to use graphing programs, and has fast regression curve fitting that makes polynomial designs easy. CricketGraph files can be read by DataGraph. |
| Data Loom | PowerPC | Free data visualization program for multivariate data by Carl Manaster. |
| FloStat | 68K; v2.0 Updated 2000 |
FloStat provided basic analysis; it is still published by Senecio Software (as of April 2010). |
| GLMstat | PowerPC OS 9, X v. 6.0 Updated 2005 |
$25 shareware for generalized linear models with a graphic suer interface. Has spreadsheet-style data entry, many plots and diagrams, statistics, and saving of model specifications. |
| LISREL | PPC; v. 8.7 Updated 2006 |
("LInear Structural RELations"), developed by Karl Jöreskog and Dag Sörbom; the program for structural equation modeling for years. Version 8.7 had OS X compatibility; by 2008, all mentions of Mac versions were gone. |
| MacCATI | v 2.5 |
MacCati was designed for web- and self-administered surveys, and ran in Java. |
| MacCurveFit | 68K, PPC; v. 1.5.5 |
MacCurveFit fits a regression curve to user defined functions using least squares. Pricing remains the same as it was in 2003. |
| MacSpin | 68K: v3.1d3 | First 3D data visualization program for the Macintosh (and perhaps any personal computer). |
| MathCAD | “Classic” | General purpose math program |
| Minitab | 68K, PPC; v. 10 Updated 1997 |
Statistics package used mostly in education. |
| SAS | PPC; v.6.12 | The last port worked in Classic. JMP is still available on Macs. |
| StatSoft Statistica | 68K; 4.1 Updated 1997 |
In May 2007, it was still listed for sale on their web site. Caveat emptor, indeed! Statistica once went head to head with SPSS. (In 2010 the Mac version was gone, along with price lists.) |
| STATsimple | 68K; 2.05 | $25 shareware with descriptive stats, histograms, student’s t-test and linear regression, by Chris Pereira. |
| StatView SuperANOVA |
68K, PPC; v5 | We miss these programs from Abacus Concepts! SAS bought the company and then dropped support in 2003. StatView and SuperANOVA were fast, capable, and easy to use, but did not have a syntax language. |
| Systat | 68K; v5.21 | Bought by SPSS Inc, Mac version dropped, sold to Cranes (of India). 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 | Free program by Forrest Young, Mac version abandoned around 1999. Windows version later picked up by co-author Pedro M. Valero-Mora. |