Systat 11: Comprehensive Statistical Software and Great Graphics
By Jack Yurkiewicz

Systat is a full-featured, dedicated statistical analysis program. Originally written for the first-generation IBM PC (I still use the DOS version 5, circa 1991, on my handheld computer), the program has grown into a sophisticated, easy-to-use product. The current version is Systat 11, released in 2004. Running only on the Windows (Windows 98 or later) platform, the hardware requirements are modest: any Pentium microprocessor, 64MB RAM and 150MB of storage (80MB less if you omit the PDF documentation). I used Systat on several computers, from a Pentium II to a Pentium IV. The speed performance on the Pentium II was, of course, slower, but still quick enough as to be unobjectionable.

Most users, when looking for statistics software, primarily want to know its capabilities (statistical and graphical), its accuracy, how easy is it to learn and how easy is it to use. Other issues would be the quality of its help system (written and on-disk documentation), vendor support and perhaps price. While a limited review cannot comprehensively answer all of the above issues, I will try to address many of the salient factors in each.


Capabilities

Systat's list of statistical features is broad.


Table 1. Statistical Features

Basic Statistics


• Descriptive Statistics
• Confidence intervals for mean and proportion, hypothesis tests for mean, proportion, standard deviation, correlation
• Resampling - Bootstrap, without replacement, Jackknife
• N- & P-Tiles: Cleveland, Weighted average 1, Weighted average 2, Weighted average 3, Empirical CDF, Empirical CDF (average), Closest

Cross Tabulation and Measures of Association


• One-, two-way and multiway tables
• Row and column frequencies, percents, expected values and deviates
• List layouts, order categories, define intervals, including missing intervals
• 2 x 2 tables: likelihood ratio chi square, Yates', Fisher's, odds ratio, Yule's Q
• R x R tables: McNemar's test, Cohen's kappa
• R x C tables: unordered levels, phi, Cramer's V, contingency coefficient, uncertainty coefficient, Goodman-Kruskal's lambda
• R x C ordered levels: rho, Goodman-Kruskal's gamma, Kendall's tau-b, Stuart's tau-c, Somers' D
• Mantel-Haenszel test, Cochran test

Regression


• Linear (least squares, Stepwise, Bayesian, Ridge), Two Stage Least Squares, Nonlinear, Robust, Logistic, Probit

ANOVA


• One-way ANOVA: multiple tests, Bonferroni, Tukey-Kramer HSD, Scheffé, Fisher's LSD
• Two-way ANOVA: post hoc tests on least squares means (Bonferroni, Tukey, LSD, Scheffé)
• Repeated measures: one-way, two or more factors, three or more factors
• Designs: unbalanced, randomized block, complete block, fractional factorial, mixed model, nested, split plot, Latin square, crossover and change over, Hotelling's T2
• ANCOVA
• Bootstrap, without replacement, Jackknife

General Linear Model

Time Series Analysis


• Moving Averages, Exponential Smoothing, Holt's Method, Winters' Method
• Box-Jenkins ARIMA model
• Fourier and inverse Fourier transforms

Nonparametric Statistics

Multivariate Statistics


• Cluster, Factor, Discriminant Analysis
• MANOVA, MANCOVA

Additional Statistical Capabilities


• Conjoint Analysis
• Survival Analysis
• Path Analysis (RAMONA)
• Perceptual Mapping
• Spatial Statistics
• Signal Detection Analysis

• Bar, Dot, Line, Pie, Profile and Pyramid Charts
• Histograms, Box, Dot and Density Plots
• Scatter, High-Low-Close, Probability, Quantile Plots
• Multivariate Graphs: Scatterplot Matrix, Parallel Coordinate Display, Andrew's Fourier Plot, Icon Plot
• Function Plot
• Map Displays - Geographic projections (2-D): Gnomonic, stereo, Mercator, ortho, Lambert, Robinson, sinusoidal, Miller, Peters, fish-eye
• Quantile and Probability Plots - 28 probability densities