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Jandel Scientific has a well-deserved reputation for producing some of the best scientific and technical software around. With its new SigmaStat 1.0 for Windows. Jandel has tried to designs a sophisticated yet easy-to-use statistical package for scientists and researchers. SigmaStat succeeds on a few counts, but disappoints in many areas.
SigmaStat combines data management, statistical, graphics, and reporting capabilities in a compact Windows program. A distinct plus is the program's built-in Statistical Advisor, which guides you to the right analyses to use if you're shaky or just rusty on your statistics.
Unfortunately, there isn't much else to recommend about this program. It covers only the basics of data management; you'll fare best if you don't do lots of data file juggling and subfile analysis. Its exploratory graphics don't hold a candle to the unsurpassed Systat for Windows (see review, May 17, 1993, page 79). And SigmaStat doesn't have the analytic breadth of SPSS for Windows (see review, September 21, 1992, page 108)
With this review, we debut our new task-oriented test plan for statistical packages, which scores products based on how well they accomplish chores a statistician might typically perform. We'll soon use this new test plan to review two other newcomers on the Windows statistical scene: Manugistics Inc.'s Statgraphics for Windows and BMDP Inc.'s BMDP New System for Windows.
PERFORMANCE:
Installation and configuration: It was a simple affair to install SigmaStat, a small package as Windows software goes (it comes on only three floppy disks). The colorful installation routine let us specify the drive and directory, but not the title and location of our program group. (The program puts icons for SigmaStat, its help facility, the setup routine, and a quick-launch program called Jandel Applications Manager into a Jandel program group.) Jandel's new Windows programs share some DLL files, and these went into our Windows system directory.
During installation we could choose to include or omit only the help files, sample data, tutorial files, and examples of nonlinear regression. We had to install the bulk of the program files. Our complete installation occupied a bit more than 6MB on our hard disk; paring it down to the bare minimum would have saved only 1MB or so. The fact that you can completely uninstall...