home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
The World of Computer Software
/
World_Of_Computer_Software-02-385-Vol-1of3.iso
/
e
/
estat21.zip
/
EASIDOC.ZIP
/
ESCHAP02.DOC
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-06-30
|
30KB
|
793 lines
Chapter 2: GETTING STARTED
2:1. Demonstrations
If you do not want to see demonstrations of EASISTAT and
EASIGRAF in action then skip this section.
2:1.1 Starting the EASISTAT demonstration
A special command file is supplied called DEMO and this
has been written to provide a demonstration of many of
EASISTAT'S features. The demonstration lasts a few
minutes. To see it, first make sure that your computer is
turned on and that you have booted up DOS in the usual
way (if you do not know how to do this please consult
your DOS manual). You should see a prompt saying
something like e.g. A> or B:\> or C:\DOS>. Put the
EASISTAT disk into the disk drive of your computer and
close the door of the drive. Do not take the disk out of
the drive until the demonstration has finished. Now type
the name of that drive followed by a colon (either A: or
B:) and press the ENTER (or RETURN) key. Now type DEMO
and press the ENTER key. The demonstration should begin.
(In fact entering DEMO in this way runs the DOS batch
file called DEMO.BAT, which contains the line EASISTAT
DEMO and it is this line which causes EASISTAT to run
using the command file DEMO as input.)
2:1.2 During the demonstration
The demonstration will pause regularly to allow you time
to read what is on the screen. when a pause occurs the
following message appears in the bottom window of the
screen:
A pause has occurred in the input command file
'E' to end file, 'K' to use keyboard, any other key to continue
When the message appears the computer will wait for you
to press a key before it does anything else. If you press
any key except E or K the demonstration will continue
normally, and we advise you to do this. If you press E
the demonstration will finish prematurely and you will be
left with control of the EASISTAT. To find out what to do
next see the section titled "When the demonstration
finishes". If you press K then you will gain temporary
control of EASISTAT and you can issue any commands you
like to it as described later in the manual. You can then
return to the demonstration at any time by entering INPUT
CLOSE.
Sometimes the demonstration may appear to have paused but
the above message does not appear in the window. This
means that EASISTAT is busy performing a calculation
which is taking a little time. The longest takes about a
minute on slower computers. Just wait and the
demonstration should proceed.
Do not worry about the other words you see popping up in
the bottom window. These are requests by the program for
new commands and parameters, but they are supplied by the
8
Getting started
demonstration file so you do not have to do anything.
2:1.3 When the demonstration runs the editor
Late on in the demonstration the full-screen data editor
is displayed and you are left in control of it. For full
details of how to use the editor you can refer to the
section specifically on the EDIT command. For
demonstration purposes you may just want to move around
the table a bit using the cursor keys and changing a few
numbers here and there. The only thing you really need to
know is how to leave the editor. To do this simply press
the ESCAPE key, which is usually up near the top left of
the keyboard and is marked "Esc". You will return to the
end of the demonstration.
2:1.4 When the EASISTAT demonstration has finished
At the end of the demonstration you will be put in
control of EASISTAT (if you have paid for the program
then obviously you should ignore the message asking you
to do so). You can now either leave EASISTAT or you can
proceed to run the demonstration of how EASISTAT can
interact with EASIGRAF to produce graphs. If you wish to
leave EASISTAT, type QUIT then press the ENTER key, then
when asked if you are sure type YES and press ENTER.
Otherwise, continue on to the next section.
2:1.5 Running the EASIGRAF demonstrations
There are two demonstrations which show you the features
of EASIGRAF. The first one demonstrates how EASISTAT can
interact with EASIGRAF to produce graphs. If you wish to
see this then while running EASISTAT insert the disk
containing the EASIGRAF files into the drive. (If the
EASISTAT and EASIGRAF files are all on the same disk then
you do not have to do anything.) Next type INPUT GDEMO
and press ENTER. EASISTAT should then begin reading the
GDEMO demonstration file, which will run EASIGRAF.
The second EASIGRAF demonstration does not require
EASISTAT, and shows how EASIGRAF works with graph files
which have already been created. This demonstration is
produced by GRAFDEMO.BAT, which is a DOS batch file. To
run it you must first leave EASISTAT (by entering QUIT)
and make sure that the disk containing the EASIGRAF files
is in the drive. Then at the DOS prompt enter GRAFDEMO.
Each time the demonstration runs EASIGRAF it should
present a graph on the screen. Sometimes the
demonstration will suggest certain keys to press to see
special features of EASIGRAF. However the only thing that
you really need to know is that to leave EASIGRAF and
continue with the demonstration you press the letter Q on
the keyboard.
There are one or two things which may go wrong when
running the EASIGRAF demonstration. If your computer has
a very limited amount of memory then it may not be
possible for both EASISTAT and EASIGRAF to reside in
memory at once, and it will not be possible to run the
GDEMO demonstration from EASISTAT. The stand-alone
9
Getting started
demonstration GRAFDEMO.BAT should still work OK in this
situation however.
A more serious problem is that EASIGRAF may not be able
to recognise what kind of display type you have. If this
is the case then the first time the demonstration tries
to run EASIGRAF no graph will be displayed and you may
get an error message saying that the display type is
unrecognised, or the computer may just "hang up" and stop
dead. If the computer hangs you will need to reboot it,
either by pressing CONTROL-ALT-DEL or by turning it off
and on again. If the display type cannot be recognised
automatically then you will need to set the DOS
environment variable FG_DISPLAY. This is described in the
section below on installation.
2:1.6 Examining the demonstration files
We recommend that when you have become a bit more
familiar with EASISTAT and EASIGRAF you should study the
files called DEMO, GDEMO and GRAFDEMO.BAT carefully. You
can read them with a word processor or the EDIT program
and you can print them out on a printer by entering e.g.
PRINT DEMO when you are at the DOS prompt. The first two
are simply EASISTAT command files such as you can write
yourself, and it may be very helpful for you to see the
way that the commands have been used in the file to
create the demonstration that you see.
2:2. Quick start
You are advised to skip this section and move on to the
section headed "Installation". However if you can't wait
and want to have a have a go at working EASISTAT here's
what you do:
1. Make sure your computer is turned on and that you have
booted up DOS in the usual way (if you do not know how to
do this please consult your DOS manual). You should see a
prompt saying something like e.g. A> or B:\> or C:\DOS\>.
Put the EASISTAT disk into the disk drive of your
computer and close the door of the drive. Now type the
name of that drive followed by a colon (either A: or B:)
and press the ENTER (or RETURN) key.
2. Type EASISTAT and press ENTER. The EASISTAT screen
should appear.
3. Press any key, and the message "Select command -" will
appear in the bottom window. In the top window a list of
all the commands available appears.
4. Type EDIT and press ENTER. You are now looking at the
data editing screen, which is almost empty except for one
column called "NEW" and one row with a zero in it.
5. Hold down the CONTROL key (marked "Ctrl") with one
finger and then while doing so press the RIGHT ARROW key.
A second column appears to the right of the first one. Do
this once or twice more if you feel like it.
10
Getting started
6. Using the arrow keys you can move from column to
column and then type a number into that column. To make a
new row and move down to it press ENTER.
7. Moving around the screen in this way type in a few
numbers to get the feel of the editor. (At this stage
numbers following a decimal point will not be displayed.)
When you've filled a few rows and columns press the
ESCAPE key (marked "Esc") and you will leave the editor.
The "Select command -" message will be displayed.
8. Type BASICS C1 then press ENTER. You will be shown the
mean, variance, etc. of the numbers you typed into the
first column.
9. Type REGRESS C1 C2 then press ENTER. You will see the
correlation coefficient and linear regression line for
the first two columns.
10. Type QUIT then press ENTER.
11. Type YES then press ENTER.
12. Now read the rest of the manual.
2:3. Installation
Installing the programs is fairly simple. The following
program files will need to be copied to a suitable
subdirectory:
EASISTAT.EXE
EASIGRAF.EXE
EDIT.EXE
The following program files will need to be extracted
from the self-extracting archive UTILS.EXE into the same
subdirectory:
EASIMATH.EXE
PRMSP.EXE
You should add the subdirectory where the program files
are to be located to the DOS search path, using the PATH
command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. You should also check
that your CONFIG.SYS file has the lines FILES=10 and
BUFFERS=20.
You may need to set the DOS environment variable
FG_DISPLAY if EASIGRAF has trouble recognising your
display type, and this again should be accomplished with
the relevant command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
If you require the documentation files on disk then they
can be extracted from the self-extracting archives
EASIDOC1.EXE and EASIDOC2.EXE.
The following sections until "Running EASISTAT" describe
how to accomplish the above procedures. The other files
which are supplied consist of example files which are
used in the demonstrations and you may or may not wish to
11
Getting started
copy these also.
2:3.1 Copying the program files
We recommend that you put all of the program files into
their own subdirectory on your hard disk. You may or may
not also want to have the demonstration and example data
files with them, but to run the programs successfully you
only need the program files. We will assume you wish to
install programs into a subdirectory called ESTAT of your
hard disk. We will assume that your hard disk drive is
called C: and your floppy disk drive is called A:. Begin
by entering the following lines just as they are printed
(by "enter" we mean type the line and then press the
ENTER or RETURN key):
C:
MKDIR \ESTAT
CHDIR \ESTAT
Put the floppy disk supplied into drive A: and close the
door on that drive. In order to see which files are on
the disk enter the following line:
DIR A:
If you have received the files on more than one disk then
the programs you require may be on different disks. For
each program insert the relevant disk in the drive before
entering one of the following lines:
COPY A:EASISTAT.EXE
COPY A:EDIT.EXE
COPY A:EASIGRAF.EXE
The files that were on the floppy disk(s) are now copied
onto the hard disk into the subdirectory called ESTAT.
Put the floppy disk(s) away somewhere safe.
2:3.2 Copying the example files
Although you do not need them to run the programs, you
may want to make copies of the demonstration and example
files so that you can refer to them later. This is done
in the same way as the program files are copied, so for
example if you wish to copy the file called DEMO you
would enter:
COPY A:DEMO
The only thing to add is that it is easy to copy all the
example graph files at once (the files ending .GRP) by
using the DOS wildcard facility:
COPY A:*.GRP
2:3.3 Extracting files from an archive
In order to extract the files from the self-extracting
archive called UTILS.EXE all you have to do is enter
UTILS and the files will be extracted into the current
working directory. To get the files into the ESTAT
12
Getting started
subdirectory of drive C: put the floppy disk containing
the file UTILS.EXE into drive A: and enter:
C:
CHDIR \ESTAT
A:UTILS
You should see that the utility programs contained in the
archive are extracted without any problems. If you wish
to obtain copies of the documentation on disk then you
should follow the same procedure for the files
EASIDOC1.EXE and EASIDOC2.EXE.
2:3.4 Setting the PATH
We recommend that if you install the programs into a
subdirectory of your hard disk then you should add this
directory to your DOS search path. This is done with the
PATH command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file which is in the
root directory of the disk you boot from. Assuming that
your computer boots from the hard disk (i.e. there is no
floppy disk in the drive when you switch on your
computer) then the full file name will be
C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT. The best way to edit this file is to use
the EDIT program supplied. This should have been copied
into the relevant subdirectory (e.g. C:\ESTAT) along with
the other files. In this case you should enter the
following commands:
C:
CHDIR \ESTAT
EDIT C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT
If this procedure works correctly you should now see your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file displayed, and one of the lines in it
will almost certainly begin PATH. If there is no line
beginning PATH or SET PATH then then use the editor to
add the following line:
PATH=C:\ESTAT
More likely, there will already be a PATH statement and
then you should add the correct subdirectory to the end
of it, separated by a semicolon. For example if you
currently have the line:
PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\UTILS
you should change it to
PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\UTILS;C:\ESTAT
When you have finished altering AUTOEXEC.BAT press the
ESCAPE key to bring up the EDIT menu, press S to save,
press ENTER twice to save the file back as
C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT and then press Q and ENTER to quit the
editor.
An unlikely possibility is that you do not have any
AUTOEXEC.BAT file at all, in which case the above
procedure would create one. However if you get a message
from EDIT that it could not read the file then it is more
13
Getting started
likely that it does exist but you that you have not
specified its name or location correctly.
If you do boot from a floppy disk then you can alter the
AUTOEXEC.BAT file on that by entering:
EDIT A:\AUTOEXEC.BAT
If you only have one floppy disk drive and you wish to
use the EDIT program from one floppy disk to alter the
AUTOEXEC.BAT file on another then you can put the first
disk in the drive and enter:
EDIT B:\AUTOEXEC.BAT
The computer will ask you to insert "the disk for drive
B:" and you can put in the second disk to be edited.
2:3.5 Setting up CONFIG.SYS
For the programs to work properly you may need to have
the following lines in your CONFIG.SYS file:
FILES=10
BUFFERS=20
(The values can be higher than 10 and 20, but should not
be lower. If you choose to have deeply-nested command
files and also want to have other files open at the same
time, then the value for FILES may need to be even higher
that 10, but 10 should suffice for normal usage.)
You can edit the CONFIG.SYS file in the same way as is
described above to edit the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, using the
EDIT program.
2:3.6 Setting FG_DISPLAY
FG_DISPLAY is a DOS environment variable which will need
to be set if EASIGRAF cannot recognise your display
device automatically. This is the kind of monitor that
you have (or rather the kind of display card that the
monitor plugs into). This is a problem which you will
either get straight away or never - you can't have it
some days and not others. You can test EASIGRAF by making
sure that you have a copy of one of the example graph
files, for example HISTO.GRP, on the floppy disk in drive
A: and then entering:
EASIGRAF A:HISTO.GRP
If EASIGRAF manages to draw any kind of graph on your
screen then it has recognised the display OK and you can
move on. If it draws nothing or produces a very scrambled
display or maybe gives you an error message about a
problem initialising the display then you will have to
set a DOS environment variable called FG_DISPLAY to the
name of your display type. To do this, at the DOS prompt
before you run EASIGRAF or EASISTAT type the following
line:
14
Getting started
SET FG_DISPLAY=xxxx
except instead of xxxx type one of the following:
HERC
CGAHIRES
EGAECD
VGA11
VGA12
EGAMONO
EGACOLOR
TOSHIBA
8514A
Which one you type depends on the kind of display you
have which you will have to determine from reading your
computer manual or by asking your supplier. So if you
have a Hercules-compatible display you would type:
SET FG_DISPLAY=HERC
and if you had a CGA display you would type:
SET FG_DISPLAY=CGAHIRES
and so on.
If you can't work out what sort of display you have you
will have to try each in turn until you find one which
makes EASIGRAF work properly. You only have to set the
display type once each time your computer is turned on,
so when you've found the right command you should put it
into your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Follow the instructions
above for editing your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and add the line
(for example):
SET FG_DISPLAY=CGAHIRES
2:3.7 Installation on a floppy disk
If you will be using the programs from a floppy disk then
you should make back up copies of all the files. We will
assume that you have a floppy disk drive called A:. If
you have a second floppy disk drive it will be called B:,
otherwise your computer will pretend that your one drive
is actually two and will keep asking you to swap disks.
Put the floppy disk supplied into drive A: and close the
door on that drive. If you have a second drive put a
blank formatted disk into that drive and close the door.
Otherwise just have the second disk ready to swap when
the computer tells you to.
Enter each of the following lines just as they are
printed (by "enter" we mean type the line and then press
the ENTER or RETURN key).
A:
COPY *.* B:
(If you have only one drive the computer will ask you to
swap the disks around, so just follow its instructions.
15
Getting started
The "disk for drive A:" is the one we have supplied and
the "disk for drive B:" is the blank one to copy the
program onto.)
Repeat this process for each of the disks that have been
supplied, then put the original disks away somewhere
safe.
The self-extracting archives can also be unpacked from
one floppy disk to another, even if you actually only
have one disk drive. To unpack UTILS.EXE just enter:
A:UTILS B:
This will run UTILS.EXE from drive A:, but the files will
be written to drive B: and DOS will ask you to insert the
appropriate disk for each drive.
You may want to copy some of the program files but not
others to be together on the same disk, for example if
you wanted to have EDIT.EXE and PRMSP.EXE on the same
disk you would start with an extra blank disk and then
insert the disk containing EDIT.EXE into drive A: and
either insert the blank disk into drive B: or if you have
only one drive then just keep it ready to swap. Then
enter:
COPY A:EDIT.EXE B:
Then insert the disk containing PRMSP.EXE into drive A:
and enter:
COPY A:PRMSP.EXE B:
2:3.8 Running EASISTAT
(If you have just altered your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS
file then you should reboot your computer or turn it off
and then on again so that the changes you have just made
can take effect.)
To run EASISTAT just type EASISTAT at the DOS prompt and
press ENTER (or RETURN). This will only work if
EASISTAT.EXE is in the current working directory or on
the DOS search path. If you get the message:
Bad command or file name
then it means that DOS cannot find the file called
EASISTAT.EXE in the current working directory or on the
search PATH and either you must change to the directory
where EASISTAT.EXE is or you you must tell DOS where it
can find EASISTAT.EXE by giving the full pathname for it.
As an example, suppose that you are currently logged on
to drive A: (which means that the DOS prompt will say A>,
A:\> or something similar) and that EASISTAT.EXE is on
the hard disk, drive C:, in a subdirectory called ESTAT.
Then to run EASISTAT you could enter one of the following
two sets of commands:
16
Getting started
C:
CHDIR \ESTAT
EASISTAT
or:
C:\ESTAT\EASISTAT
If you are not sure whether or not you are in the
subdirectory which contains EASISTAT.EXE then enter DIR
and you will see a list of all files in that
subdirectory. If you do not understand how the
subdirectory structure works and how to manipulate files
with DOS commands, then we strongly advise you to study
the DOS manual and make yourself familiar with the
following commands: DIR, MKDIR, CHDIR, COPY, DEL, REN.
They are quite straightforward when you get the hang of
them and your computer will be about 347 times more
useful to you once you have understood them.
If you are running EASISTAT from a hard disk then you can
avoid these problems by editing the PATH statement in
your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to include the subdirectory
containing EASISTAT, as described above.
2:3.9 Using subdirectories
The program EASISTAT is loaded from a program file called
EASISTAT.EXE. As well as this file EASISTAT can also use
four other kinds of file: data files, output files,
command files and graph files. You will need to decide
where you want to keep these different files.
A simple solution is to have EASISTAT.EXE and the other
files used all on the same disk and all in the same
subdirectory. Then whenever you want to use EASISTAT you
should first change into that subdirectory (using the
CHDIR command as in the first of the two methods
described in the section above) and then all the files
will automatically be in the right place.
However it may well be that you will want to keep
EASISTAT.EXE in one subdirectory and the associated files
in another (for example different people may use EASISTAT
and each person may want to keep his or her data in a
separate subdirectory). If that is the case we recommend
that you add the EASISTAT directory to your PATH
statement as explained above. If you do not wish to do
that then you should first change into the directory with
data files etc., and then run EASISTAT by using the
second method described above. To try to make this clear
here are some examples of different locations for
EASISTAT.EXE and the data files with the recommended
commands for running the program:
Example 1. EASISTAT.EXE on a disk in drive A: and data
files on hard disk C: in a subdirectory called STANLEY.
Enter:
C:
CHDIR \STANLEY
A:EASISTAT
17
Getting started
Example 2. EASISTAT.EXE on hard disk C: in a subdirectory
called ESTAT and data files on a disk in drive B:. Enter:
B:
C:\ESTAT\EASISTAT
Example 3. EASISTAT.EXE on hard disk C: in a subdirectory
called UTILS which is itself in a subdirectory called
MICHAEL and data files on drive hard disk C: in a
subdirectory called DATA which itself is in a
subdirectory called TIMOTHY. Enter:
C:
CHDIR \TIMOTHY\DATA
\MICHAEL\UTILS\EASISTAT
We hope this gives you the general idea.
It's usually better to start from the subdirectory where
your data and output files are to go than from the one
EASISTAT is in, but it is only a question of convenience.
Given the above setup you could run the whole thing even
though you were logged onto drive B: by entering
C:\MICHAEL\UTILS\EASISTAT
and then using EASISTAT commands like
DATA C:\TIMOTHY\DATA\FIXED.DAT
OUTPUT C:\TIMOTHY\DATA\FUDGED.OUT
so that it would be perfectly clear to EASISTAT where to
look for the other files.
If you wish to use EASIGRAF in conjunction with EASISTAT,
then EASISTAT will need to be able to find the EASIGRAF
program file, EASIGRAF.EXE. For this to work
automatically then EASIGRAF.EXE must either be in the
current working directory or in one of the directories
specified by the PATH statement. If the former case is to
apply then it may be an argument for keeping a copy of
EASIGRAF.EXE in the same directory as your data files.
To repeat, by far the best way to avoid these
complications is to see that the subdirectory containing
the program files has been added to the PATH statement in
the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Then you can use the subdirectory
containing data files as the working directory and the
programs will always be automatically available.
2:3.10 If you only have one disk drive
The advantage of EASISTAT over some other programs is
that the whole program is loaded into memory at once and
no overlays are used. This makes it run more quickly, and
it also means that once it has been loaded there is no
need to keep the disk from which it was run in the disk
drive. This means that the programs can be used even if
you have a computer which has no hard disk and only one
floppy drive. If you have EASISTAT.EXE on one floppy disk
and your data files on another, then you can use them
both in the same disk drive by loading EASISTAT from the
18
Getting started
first disk and then running it with the second disk in
the drive. Begin by putting the disk containing
EASISTAT.EXE in the drive, close the door of the drive
and enter:
EASISTAT
Then put the first disk aside and replace it with the
disk which you wish to use for data files etc. When you
use EASISTAT it will read and write the files on this
disk.
If you have an ordinary double density 5.25" disk then
there will not be room for both EASISTAT.EXE and
EASIGRAF.EXE on the same disk. It is up to you which
other files you want to copy to be together on a disk,
but in order to be able to display graphs automatically
the simplest solution is to have a copy of EASIGRAF.EXE
on the same disk as the data files. Alternatively, when
it is desired to produce a graph the disk containing the
data files can be temporarily removed and the EASIGRAF
disk inserted instead. However this last technique cannot
be used if EASISTAT is writing any output files or
reading any command files, because changing disks would
cause these files to be corrupted.
19