AT-ATS Statistcal Software

What is AT-ATS?

AT-ATS is a pet project that I started early this spring, on a dreary dark weekend. Basically, it is an attempt to recreate the capabilities of the popular statistics program, STATA

It doesn't do even 1/10th of what STATA can do, but it does everything for which I have used STATA in one semester of statistics and one semester of econometrics -- including graphs.

What does At-ats look like?

Does it really work?

For me, it seems to work fine. Because I have a copy of STATA, I have been able to compare the output between the two programs to see that it agrees. I'm sure that when people really try to use it for more varied work, they will see limitations and bugs, but so far, I have I have succesffuly run all my homework assignments through it.

Do you have any Documentation?

Here is a minimal how-to guide, but there is also substantial documentation built into the program itself under the "help" menu or through the help command.

Will it run on a Mac/PC/Linux?

PC (WinXP) Mac Linux
It works — and there is a primitive auto-installer available, which makes it easy to set up. If you try to install with this installer and it doesn't work; let me know, I really want to make the install process smooth. unknown — I don't know anything about Macs, but I suspect it can be made to work on this platform. Do you want to help? It works — However, I have not created an automatic installer or "RPM" for it. Does anybody else at GSPP run Linux?

There is no reason, theoretically, that it won't work on any platform that hosts Perl. However, AT-ATS relies on one particular Perl library called Perl::PDL that is difficult to build on some platforms.

Okay, I'll give it a try, how can I get it?

Download it here:

    Latest revision:

  • Older revision: atats_install_0_10.zip
  • Newer: atats_install_0_11a.zip
  • The later version has some bug fixes and other minor improvements, but I have not been able to test the installer script completely. The older version, however, I know has a working installer.

Installation Instructions (Windows XP PC)

  1. BE ON A NETWORK AND ABLE TO ACCESS THE INTERNET. For copyright reasons, not all the files necessary for installation are aqctually in the download. The installer will fetch additional files from the Internet as needed during the install process.
  2. Download the file above. Save it on your PC and note where you saved it.
  3. Unzip the file. Just clicking on the file in Windows will not do this correctly.. That will open a window, but the file is not really unzipped. Instead, “right click” on the file and then select the unzip optiont
  4. Click on the "setup" icon
  5. Be patient. Several things are happening during the install:
    1. It downloads a pre-built version of the Perl language from Activestate.com
    2. It downloads several public domain libraries that AT-ATS relies on
    3. It installs the included PDL library so that Perl can use it. (If you're interested, it is PDL that provides that underlying linear algebra capabilities that At-ats relies on.)
    4. It copies the AT-ATS files themselves to your hard drive
    5. It creates a desktop and start menu icon for AT-ATS
    It takes about 15 minutes to go on a slow PC. When it's done it will flash "all done" and the window will close
  6. A link for AT-ATS should appear in your start menu now. Click it, and your good to go. Rebooting your PC is not necessary.

Upgrading Instructions (Windows XP PC)

  1. Download the file above.
  2. Unzip it.
  3. Open the "installer" folder
  4. Click on the "upgrade" icon with the gear on it.
  5. Wait for the window to close

That should do ya'. Upgrading only changes a few files usually.

I found a bug / it crashed / I would like to see X feature...

My fiancee insists I take a hiatus from this ridiculous project for the near term, and the requirements of school backed that up. Short form: not much will happen in the next few months. However, don't let that stop you from contacting me with ideas, etc. I may be able to work on this over the summer if people actually take an interest.