★ APPLICATIONS ★ DIVERS ★ AMSTAT2|Popular Computing Weekly) ★ |
| Amstat2 | Applications Divers |
Software - the statistics Amstat2 is, no surprises here, the second in a series ot low price statistical programs for Amstrad computers. It is aimed at an untapped market of those people, presumably mostly college students, who need to use statistical techniques for their work, but who can't aflord the hundreds of pounds asked for most stats software. To recap for those who missed the first review, Amstatl is designed to perform many simple tests such as simple ANOVA, simple regression and summary stats (mean, variance, etc) and is an excellent buy for school level. Later Amstat programs will deal with advanced but specific applications - multiple regression, etc. Amstat2 is a collection of what are know as 'non-parametric tests'. The technical categories of these tests are one sample, related two-sample tests, independent two sample tests, and k-sample tests with measures of correlation and they include such old hits as Binomial. Chisquare. Wilcoxon matched pairs. Contingency, Spearman and Kendall ranked correlations, etc. Partly because each Amstat release fits into a defined theme and also partly, I suspect, to counter criticisms of Amstatl that there was no educational aspects - a level of knowledge was already assumed - Amstat2 is very large and has been written to parallel a standard text on Nonparametrics to which you are often referred. There is a small drawback in that the program now costs some £40 even without the text. With four programs supplied and twenty seven tests the value of the package is still tremendous, something like £1.50 a test but the overall price may put it out of reach of some people. However, a CP/M conversion of the programs is promised (for the PCW mainly) and the company will be entering a world of more serious users and more hefty pricing so Amstat2may do well. There are no great differences in presentation to Amstatl beyond the provision of a patch for screen dumps and the ability to save the results to a word processor file. As a fan of cheap but useful software for the masses to match the cheap and useful, hardware. I highly recommend Amstat. Tony Kendle, PopularComputingWeekly860508
|
