MICROSTATMICROSTAT
Microstat - a menu driven general statistical package.
System Requirements:
Machine :16 bit 80386 CPU
Operating system :MS DOS
Language :written by APCBASIC; NORTH STAR BASIC
Precision :14 digit precision
Data Set Size :dependent on
Procedure being used
Amount of memory of the PC
Operating system being used
About 120 variables
Disk space :160 KB
Printer :assumes 80 characters per line; maximum of 300
Starting MicrostatAt the DOS prompt type MICROSTAT then press enter.
Main Menu
Presents the major microstat program options available to the user. Entering ther letter associated with desired option loads and executes the program option selected. Within each optinons are sub-options.
OPTIONS :
A. DATA MANAGEMENT SUB SUSTERM
B. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
C. FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION
D. HYPOTHESIS TESTS: MEAN
E. ANAYSIS OF VARIANCE
F. SCATTERPLOT
G. CORRELATION MATRIX
H. REGRESSION ANALYSIS
I. TIME SERIES ANALYSIS
J. NONPARAMETRIC STATISTICS
K. CROSSTAB / CHI-SQUARE TEST
L. ERMUTATIONS / COMBINATIONS
M. PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS
N. HYPOTHESIS TESTS: PROPORTIONS
O. [ IDENTIFICATION / INSTALLATION]
P. [TERMINATE]
II. CONVENTION, DEFAULTS AND PROCEDURES
The user is always presented with a list of options, an option is selected by entering the corresponding letter. The enter key may or may not be necessary depending on the installation. The default option is always the first on the list of options. It will be selsected by pressing the enter key without entering a letter. Upper or lower case letters may be used. For yes or no option press Y or N. The TERMINATE option will brin the user back t the previous menu.
Other data entry requires pressing the enter key, ie entering numbers that become part of the data file. When prompting for alpha characters e.g file name, label or title, a row of centerline characters wil indicate the maximum length of the expected character entry.
END OF PROGRAM OPTION. Most program output is first sent to CRT for display. Afterwhich the user is given the option of redirecting the output to the printer or to a text file.
PANIC BUTTONS. Whenever a program stop with "press any key to continue" pressing esc will return the main menu or the DMS menu. Pressing CTRL C aborts the execution of the program and return control to the operating system. This is not recommended as a to exit especially during disk activities.
PROGRAM MONITORING. Wheever Microstat is doing a procedure it will show something on screen to let you know it is working and to discourege you from pressing CTRL C.
ERROR INDICATOR. In case an error is detected a bell will sound.
FILE NAMES Filenames are limited to 8 characters. Blank spaces are not allowed. Lower case characters will be converted to upper case. optional drive designation followed by a colon may preceed the the filename to override the default data drive specified during the installation. A filename extension .MSD will be added to the filename.
FILE LABELS. This is a 40-character long description of the data.
VARIABLE NAMES. Variable names will be up to 8 characters long composed of any character. They are created when wht file is created and can be edited with option D in the DMS.
CHANGING DATA DISK. If one needs to change the data disk when MSTAT is prompting for a filename type CTRL R prior to removing the old disk to close any file in that disk.
PROGRAM SEQUENCE AND PROCEDURE. We shall now enumerate the order of processsing common to all statistical procedures.
1. Input/output file selection
This step asks for the name of the file that will be subject of the succeeding operation.s. The file previous accessed will be the default file. Pressing ther return key uses the default file. Pressing the enter keyuses the default file. Underlining indicates that a user response is being requested. Pressing CTRL F while the filename is being promted will display the names of MSTAT data files in the selected drive. Pressing CTRL __ allows the user to reenter entire filename. The DEL, BACKSPACE CTRL H key erases one character at a time.
2. Select Cases
This allows ont to chose between using all cases or a subset of cases for subsequent processing. If a subset of cases is desired, the begining and ending case numbers should be identified. RECODE/TRANSFORM/SELECT of the DMS has 3 other options for case selection
3. Redirect output
As mentioned in the END OF PROGRAM OPTION. Output will fist be sent to the screen. However before the module exits to the main menue the user is given the option to redirect the output to the following:
a. screen
b. printer with formfeeds
c. printer witout formfeeds
d. text file
Optin B will eject the paper to the top of new page at the beginning and at key points during program output. The option D will have an automatic file extension - PRN
4. Job title
The title that would serve as the header on the printed output . Up to 64 characters in length will be accepted.
5. Variable selection
Variables are selected by entering the number corresponding to them. Press enter after any entry. Pressing enter without entering a number will select the current sequence and inrements the number index by one. The user will always be asked if the selection is alright.
6. Group Selection
If subsets of cases is desired, MSTAT will ask for the beginning and ending case of each group inclusively.
7. missing data
If data points are missing type a decimal pointwhen entering
8. Summary of Special Keys
KEY FUNCTION
ENTER - END ENTRY OR DEFAULT SELECT
ESC - ABORTS PROGRAM AND RETURN TO MAIN MENU
CTRL C - ABORTS PROGRAM AND RETURN TO DOS
CTRL E - ALLOWS REENTERING OF FILE NAME AND TO STOP DATA FROM LISTING
CTRL F - GIVES MSTAT FILE DIRECTORY WHEN FILENAME IS BEING PROMPTED
CTRL R - USED FOR CHANGING DISK
9. Format options
The format in number of decimal places desired for the output.
V. DATA MANAGEMENT SUBSYSTEM
A. ENTER DATA
B. LIST DATA
C. EDIT DATA
D. RENAME FILE/EDIT HEADER
E. FILE DIRECTORY
F. DESTROY FILES
G. RECODE/TRANSFORM/SELECT
H. DELETE CASES
I. VERTICAL AUGMENT
J. SORT
K. RANK-ORDER
L. LAG TRANSFORMATIONS
M. READ/WRITE EXTERNAL FILES
N. TRANSPOSE FILE
O. [TERMINATE]
A. ENTER DATA
There are four options:
A. START NEW FILE
B. ADD DATA TO EXISTING FILE
C. INSERT CASES INTO EXISTING FILE
D. [TERMINATE]
When adding data the user is prompted with the case number, variable number and variable name. The editing keys are:
CHARACTERS RESULT
B - Back-up one entry
R - Restart at the beginning of case
= - Enters case number
space - Enters value for previous case
. - Enters missing data code
Enter - Enters 0 or previously entered data
End - Terminates data input
* the number of variable is defined at the creation of the file. Adding of variables can be done only by merging 2 files. The number of observations that can be entered is limited by the buffer size (indicated as the number of observations). Use option B to handle large data sets. The ADD DATA TO EXISTING FILE option only adds cases to the same variables in the file. Option C allows one to insert cases at the middle of the existing file. The case where the insertion would start would be asked and terminated with END.
B. LIST DATA
This willl list all or part of the data file in a specified format (number of decimal places 0-9), e for scientific notation, or N for unformatted data. If the number of digits could not fit ion a field of 10 digits Mstat prints * instead, CTRL E or Esc would abort the listing and return to the DMS menu.
C. EDIT DATA
Allows editing of inputed data. The case number of the data to be edited willl be asked. The module will always ask for a new case to be edited until the user signify there is no other case to be edited. Presing enter will retain the original value
D. RENAME FILE/EDIT HEADER
Allows renaming of a selection and editing of the file header originally given to that particular file.
E. FILE DIRECTORY
The directory listing could include only, MSTAT files (.MSD) or all other files. A detailed directory which includes the fileneame, the number of cases, the number of cases, the number of variables, the file size (in bytes) and file label can also be selected.
F. DESTROY FILES
The user can view the directory of files first. It prompts for up to 15 filenames to erase. Type END to exit to the DMS Menu.
G. RECODE/TRANSFORM/SELECT
RECODE allows specified ranges of values of a variable to be changed to a new value.
TRANSFORM allows several transformations to be performed that will change the values of existing variables or generating new ones.
SELECT allows for the selection of variables and cases to be outputed, changes the sequence of variables and merge variables from two files.
H. DELETE CASES
Allows the user to delete cases which are not needed.
I. VERTICAL AUGMENT
Permits all cases or a subset of cases from one file to be appended to another file to create a new file. The names of the two input files will be asked. The two input files must have the sme number of variables. The output file my be onr of the input files or a new file.
J. SORT
This module rearranges the cases in a file according to one or more variables selected as sort keys. The order (minor to major) of the inputing of the sort -keys will determine the sort order. The sorted file will replace the original file.
K. RANK-ORDER
Replaces the data in selected variables with their ranks. The ranks of the same value is averaged. The ranked file will repleace the original file.
L. LAG TRANSFORMATIONS
M. READ/WRITE EXTERNAL FILES
N. TRANSPOSE FILE
This module interchanges the rows and columns (cases and variables) of a data file.
O. [TERMINATE}
