DataDesk 5

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On: 2015-08-19 09:51:36
Updated by: InkBlot
On: 2023-06-09 15:54:15
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What is DataDesk 5?

Data Desk has never been your average statistics package. First, because it’s based on exploratory data analysis, the central activity is interactive data graphing. Second, it's shockingly compact; it practically fits on a single floppy, in contrast to classics like SPSS that arrive as a boxful of disks. Finally, it's one of the few statistics programs chat take advantage of the Mac rather than treating it as a convenient, nearly Windows-compatible alternative.

Version 5,0 demonstrates Data Desk’s independent approach. As the version numbers roll by, the competition simply loads on more statistical tests. Data Description, in contrast, has created a programming environment that encourages users to come up with their own specialized statistics. Its new Action Command Language consists of looping, branching, and window instructions, combined with math constructs for manipulating data... Another new feature, the Cofkboard, gives you a reference window for storing both displays and buttons dint start, stop, or interrupt your action-language programs.

Since you will probably want to reuse the programs you write, Data Desk lets you save an analysis — with programs, Corkboard, and live-graph windows — as a template. The only difference between a template and a normal Data Desk analysis is that the template has variable sockets rather than actual variables; you simply drop new data sets into a template, and the analysts proceeds automatically.

To demonstrate the power of the action-language/template combination, Data Desk has implemented a nonlinear regression procedure (one of the few gaps in its previous test lineup) using these new facilities. Its a great implementation, too; parameters are defined as Data Desk sliders, and you find trial values for parameters through exploratory graphics. Equally impressive are the new templates contributed by Data Desk users — everything from quality control to biomedical test statistics began appearing on the Data Desk Web site... while version 5.0 was still in beta. By the time you see this, several forms of time-series, cluster-analysis, and bootstrap/resampling statistical templates will have appeared at the site, validating Data Description’s decision to give users a programming language.

The other major new feature is Slide Show. As implemented in Data Desk, a slide show is not just a series of static pictures, hut a sequence of displays with live windows, moving graphs, scrolling text, and working program buttons. You can place an icon associated with each display in a specific order for presentation.

Version 5.0 incorporates several other major and minor improvements. The speed on Power Mac systems, for example, is amazing — Macworld Labs standard regression tests take less time than a screen redraw, and graphing is instantaneous (a very nice touch in exploratory analysis). The data-transformalion commands now include a dozen probability distributions and gamma and log gamma functions. Plots in 5.0 support scatterplot overlays, and the color assignments in plots are significantly more intelligent. In the new File Cabinet icon that appears on the desktop, you can store the typical Data Desk collections of linked slide shows, data sets, and templates.

The Last Word

Data Desk 5.0 is a great statistics program and a great Mac program. For exploratory data analysis and interactive statistical graphics, it's still the leader.

Seiter, Charles. (March 1996). Data Desk 5.0. Macworld. (pg. 79).


Download DataDesk 5 for Mac

(2.77 MiB / 2.91 MB)
System 7.0 - 7.6 - Mac OS 9 / compressed w/ Stuffit
17 / 2015-08-19 / 1d1ee37b955ab4f004b1125cd988374e2a766bab / /


Architecture


68K + PPC (FAT)



Compatibility notes


Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II





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