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From: spence@utcsstat.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc,net.math.stat
Subject: SAS/PC, PowerStat, and UNIX|STAT
Message-ID: <2282@utcsstat.uucp>
Date: Wed, 9-Jul-86 13:48:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.2282
Posted: Wed Jul  9 13:48:19 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Jul-86 17:08:24 EDT
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 34
Xref: utcs net.micro.pc:8906 net.math.stat:260

Gary Perlman has recently compared some aspects of SAS/PC, PowerStat, and his
own UNIX|STAT in this news group.

UNIX|STAT is unquestionably the cheapest, and SAS/PC is the most expensive.
But at current prices can Gary provide support for UNIX|STAT?  Will he mail out
updates to all users?  Will he provide telephone support during business
hours?  Is his (optional) documentation typeset and bound?  How extensive is
the documentation?  And so on.  It's tough to deliver lots of service when
it's a hobby and not a business.

In my opinion SAS/PC, PowerStat, and UNIX|STAT all have a niche in the
marketplace.  SAS is a very capable system, but on the PC it is large, slow,
and somewhat awkward (not to mention very expensive once you add it all up).
And you NEED a hard disk (realistically 20Mb+, if you're planning on doing
anything else with your computer).  You also NEED 512K, or more, and
SAS Institute recommends an 8087.  For use in teaching, it is a bit
unwieldy in the PC environment.  Overall, SAS/PC is a bit of a disappointment
on an 8088/86 machine.  Maybe when the 386 machines come out ...

PowerStat and UNIX|STAT are much more economical in terms of required
equipment (and price).  They can both run on vanilla PCs with 256K and two
floppies.  Although PowerStat isn't quite as cheap as UNIX|STAT, it does much
more, comes with a 524 page typeset manual, and has the the best user
interface of any statistics package on the IBM PC.  We've tried PowerStat here
at the University of Toronto in several classes: students find it very easy to
learn and use.  Much more so than SAS (which we formerly used on the
mainframe).  And I know of people at several other schools (in Canada, the US,
and Australia) who have had similar experiences.

I'd like to see more good statistical software for PCs--I don't think that
we should sit back and let SAS Institute do it all (good as they are).  We
need innovative approaches like Gary Perlman's UNIX|STAT and Analytical
Engineering's PowerStat.

Ian Spence   {allegra,decvax,seismo,utzoo,watmath}!utcs!utcsstat!spence