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StatView is astatisticsapplication originally released forApple Macintosh computers in 1985.[1]
StatView was one of the first statistics applications to have agraphical user interface, capitalizing on the Macintosh's. A user saw aspreadsheet of his or her data, comprising columns that could beintegers,long integers,real numbers,strings, orcategories, and rows that were usually cases (such as individual people forpsychology data). Columns had informative headings; rows were numbered. Category data looked like strings (e.g., a column headed "sex" would have entries of "male" and "female", but these were coded by the application as integers). Category data were used to perform inferential statistical tests such ast tests,ANOVAs, andchi square tests. To calculate statistics, a user clicked on particular column headings, designating them as anx value and one or morey values. Then the user used the application'smenus to choosedescriptive statistics orinferential statistics.
For example, a user's spreadsheet might contain columns for names of aparticipant in asurvey (a string), sex (a category variable), IQ (integer), and years using aPC (real). By designating number of years using a PC as anx variable and IQ as ay variable, the user could then choose from a menu to perform aregression. The user then had to choose from another menu how to view the regression in a separatewindow, either as a table, in which case the regression equation andANOVA were displayed, or as ascattergram, in which case a graph of the data and the regression line were shown. Contents of the analysis window could be copied either as text or as aPICT.
StatView was initially distributed byBrainPower Inc fromCalifornia. It grew up with the Macintosh, changing owners along the way. StatView 3 to 5 were distributed byAbacus Corporation. It was then bought bySAS which discontinued it in favor ofJMP. The application continued to run underClassic emulation with Apple'sMac OS X, but could not run onIntel Macintoshes. As of 2014[update], it still runs under OS 10.7.5 emulation usingBasilisk II.
StatView 2 was calledStatView SE + Graphics. It included ANOVA with one repeated-measure and, remarkably, afactor analysis. In StatView 4, the user approach changed from touching the to-be-analyzed data in the spreadsheet to clicking on column names in a separate window. This lack of immediacy was compensated for by an increase in the number of statistical tests that could be performed and in the power of existing tests. For example, multiway repeated-measures factors could be included in ANOVAs, with the only limit being the memory allocated to the application. There wereANCOVA andMANOVA too. StatView 4 also became available for PCs.[2]
Statview 5.01 for Windows runs without issue on Windows XP, Windows 7 Home and Pro, both 32- and 64-bit systems. (This does not appear to actually be the case, the only method on Windows 7 appears to be using XP Mode.) It appears to run without issue in Windows 8 under Classic Shell. Despite its lack of availability and support and the difficulty of running the application on Mac computers current in 2009, StatView still has some loyal users.[3]
A former StatView employee is sometimes able to rescue old data trapped in StatView formats and offers this service in exchange for charitable contributions to worthy causes.[4]