Statview - software & hardware questions

[auroraz7]

I used to use Statview, which was a fantastic, user friendly but highly sophisticated stat package for the Mac. Unfortunately, the company that made it was bought by SAS, which stopped publishing it and pumped all its energy into producing JMP. Statview will not run on Intel Macs. I believe the last version of OSX that allows one to use it directly (without emulation) is 10.5.8. I've come to the conclusion that it's better to stick with Statview, but of course now I have to a) get the very last version created for the Mac, and 2) Buy a pre-Intel Mac (preferably a laptop) with the maximum amount of RAM, ROM, and speed possible for such a machine. I was wondering whether anyone might know where I could get an original copy of the software, and whether anyone could recommend a Mac model/configuration that could get me as close as possible to the maximum described above. Finally, if anyone knows where I might find such a thing, I am all ears. Thanks in advance for any guidance you can provide!

[devils_advisor]

A quadcore g5 with 16gig ram would be the max

[auroraz7]

Thanks so much - this is very helpful!

[GaryN]

Note that while the above is the max hardware that will run OSX 10.5.8, it is also the rarest, hardest to find, biggest and bulkiest PPC machine ever made.  I would suggest that you think about just how much extreme cpu power you really need for your intended use. While I know absolutely nothing about Statview and/or stat apps in general (which probably puts me dead center in the median among users of this forum), I suspect it will get along just fine with a lot less power in all but the most extreme cases. I can surmise this because the app existed long before the G5 quad (which only appeared at the very end of the PPC era) and evidently its user base (including you) was perfectly happy with its performance on lesser machines up to then.

Another very important caveat here is that Quads have a common issue that is a difficult fix: They have a liquid-cooling system that is prone to leaking by the time they're this old. This repair, while doable, is not for the faint of heart. You should know there are also air-cooled G5 duals that are very fast (2x2.0Ghz) without the leakage issue.

The much more common, less expensive and far-easier-to-find-high-performance-10.5.8-math-machine would be the G4 MDD with dual 1.25 or 1.42Ghz processors. I suspect one of these would be adequate for 99% of likely "stat" uses and quite fast as well. You can probably find one of these AND a 1.67Ghz MacBook laptop to carry your tables around in for the price of a Quad.

Where you find a functioning copy of the software is a different issue altogether. College profs and other academia might be a starting point…?

[devils_advisor]

http://www.mediafire.com/file/yzgmmkngtjz/Statview5.0

you probably got a windows rig

[auroraz7]

Statview for the Mac goes up to v. 5.01 and then disappears - even from the Wayback Machine. I think it was last published in about 2001. Even back in 1985, when I first bought it at the Drexel University bookstore, it was powerful enough to do things like factor analysis and stepwise multiple regression. It even produced charts & graphs that could be exported into MS office.

That said, the last machine I had that could run it w/o emulation was an iMac G3 - but the speed/processing capacity were barely sufficient to keep it from crashing constantly.

What I'd like best of all (although I suspect it's a long shot) is to be able to retrofit one of the more recent ibooks (non-Intel) to maximize speed, RAM and ROM, then use the machine for only one purpose: to run Statview. It's vastly superior to the far more expensive, less user-friendly packages like SAS, JMP, and SPSS. I might also put Office for the Mac, 2004, on it so I could make more of those amazing charts.

Thanks again for all this helpful info!

[IIO]

G5 == 64 GB RAM

[GaryN]

G5 == 64 GB RAM

In what universe  ?

[supernova777]

gary.. lol..
thats what i ask myself everytime i see a post by a few of these guys

G5 == 64 GB RAM

LOL keep smokin that crack

[IIO]

In what universe  ?

in the upper half of the universe. the 2005 models allow you implant 8x8 when you use ECC (not sure about the pc2 modules)

[GaryN]

in the upper half of the universe. the 2005 models allow you implant 8x8 when you use ECC (not sure about the pc2 modules)

Hmmm… Look man, I don't want to nitpick here BUT: Either you have stumbled onto an amazing fact that absolutely no one else in my universe seems to know about! (8- 8Gb sticks in a G5 and it all works just because of error checking!) and you need to call MacWorld and the rest and tell them – they'll all be amazed!

OR you're confusing a G5 with a Mac Pro… granted, they do look a lot alike…

[supernova777]

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/faq/powermac-g5-memory-type-supported-number-of-ram-slots.html

he must be confusing the mac pro
but even then, they dont take 64gb
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-2.66-specs.html < 32gb
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-2.66-specs.html < 32gb
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-3.0-specs.html < 32gb
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-eight-core-3.0-specs.html < 32gb

the 2008 mac pro is the first model that supports 64gb
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-eight-core-3.2-2008-specs.html < 64gb

[supernova777]

im not familiar with statview... what exactly is it used for ?
surely there is another application that picks up where it left off?

[auroraz7]

Statview is a statistics package made for the mac. Here's a link to Wikipedia's summary thereof, which may shed some light on why I like it so much. It is (or rather, was) used primarily by people doing complex statistical analyses - inferential and predictive analytics on databases with human subjects. In short: social scientists.

Unfortunately, there is no comparable application that picks up where it left off.

Statview was a property of Abacus corporation until it was purchased by SAS in 1997. In 2001, SAS phased it out in favor of JMP, which is more expensive, more complex, and less user-friendly. It's a good program, mind you; I just happen to like Statview a lot better. JMP is much more like the advanced stat packages SAS and SPSS in ways I don't like - statview had all their power without being complex, arcane, and overpriced.

I own JMP - but I don't like it. Excel is simply not cut out for the kinds of analyses I want to run. Thus, I have concluded, my best solution is to go back to statview -- as long as I can find a way to process the data with reasonable speed and without overloading my machine.

[supernova777]

i think if u were to look u would find many different software packages are able to do the same thing.. on modern os
if there wasnt the company would not have abandoned its product so easily.

u do realize this forum is about audio?
which is pretty much one of the only worthwhile uses of mac os 9 in 2015 in MY opinion.

[auroraz7]

Yes, I do know this forum is about audio. I am a bit stymied because I didn't necessarily intend for my question to end up in this particular part of the site. But, here I am!

In fact, companies do abandon their superb products - often when other companies buy them, promising to take them to the next level - but intending all along to eliminate competition while gaining control of the competitor's distinct and superior technolog(ies). SAS is not the first company to buy something, intending to take it off the market or and/or to cannibalize its proprietary technologies. Think: flip video. That fine (and easily affordable) product was bought by Oracle and has never been or heard from again.

The reason I posed my question here at MacOS9lives.com was because when I first started trying to figure out where I might be able to find anything comparable to statview, this site/community was the only place where I could find helpful information. The material I read at the time is no longer up, but I really liked what MacOS9lives is all about. Thus, I felt if I asked here, my question would be taken seriously and I was likely to get good advice.