abg144@hardy.u.washington.edu (Andrew Gross) (06/22/91)
Well, a few weeks ago, I asked the Net for information about statistics
packages available for the Amiga. I received about a half dozen replies,
all of which basically said, "Your hosed, but if you find something, let
me know."
Well, the latest issue of Amazing Computing's Product Directory listed two
packages: GLiM and P-Stat.
Since anyone who has a need for Generalized Linear Modeling already knows
about GLiM, I won't bother to go into any details here. Needless to say,
it will be overpriced and underdocumented when released :-).
P-Stat, on the other hand, looked intriguing: the blurb in AC said that it
could handle an unlimited number of cases (well, limited only by memory--
and memory is CHEAP these days), did all of the standard statistical routines
(ANOVA, multiple regression, confidence intervals, etc. etc.), and was
interactive (like STATA, I gather, rather than, say, SAS). So called Oxxi
and here's the scoop:
The gentleman I spoke to quite obviously didn't know squat about statistics
packages. ("Import files from SAS? Um, don't think so. What's SAS?").
However, he did supply the following details, which I don't think would be
dependent upon knowing anything about statistics or statistical software:
1. The product is finished, but won't be available for another 2 months. This
is partially due to #2, below.
2. The product will NOT be called "P-Stat"; apparently, someone else already
has a product named "P-Stat". They are not sure what it will be called.
(I gathered that Oxxi was NOT pleased about this turn of events; I think
that, in addition to the advertising $$$ that have gone into "P-Stat",
they probably already had boxes and manuals printed, all of which are
gonna have to be trashed now.)
3. It will handle VERY large data sets. He claimed that the product had been
tested by "A large marketing firm in Chicago", and that they had run a
120,000 case data set on a 3meg Amiga.
And, in the slightly less likely to be true category:
4. He also said that this same marketing firm had told Oxxi that the product
was able to do things that they had not been able to do on ANY other
personal computer: that they had tried MACS, and had tried IBMs, and that
P-Stat beat out software available for both of those platforms. I MAKE
NO CLAIMS FOR THE VALIDITY OF THIS STATEMENT; like I said, the guy on the
phone from Oxxi was obviously not statistically literate.
In summary, it looks like P-Stat (or whatever it's going to be called), from
Oxxi software, is going to be a real winner. If it does ONLY those functions
reported in their (rather lengthy) blurb in the Amazing Computing Product
Directory, then it will certainly meet my needs, and (I suspect) the needs
of a lot of people.
Hope this helps.
Andrew B. Gross | "Brave, foolish, or both-- there is
abg144@hardy.u.washington.edu | something attractive about an outrageous
abg144@uwavm.u.washington.edu | and futile undertaking."
abg1@johnjohn.uchicago.edu | --Roger Zelazny, _The_Changing_Land_