The Dead Zone: Mac statistics software that appears to have been abandoned for years

DataDesk

Configurations: 680x0 without FPU; 680x0 with FPU; PowerPC native; OS X; Universal promised by end of 2006 (yes, we know it’s 2010 now)
Current Version: 6.2 (OS X), 6.1 (OS 7-9)
Price: $715 normal, $430 academic (DataDesk).
Listing updated: 4/14/2010

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 (4/14/2010). 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).

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: 8/2010

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.

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."

MX (free)

Mac OS X, Linux, many other versions
Current version: 1.55 (parity)
Last revised: April 19, 2004

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.

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 Updated 2000	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.
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.