Statistical software for Mac and Windows. Interactive, visual statistical data analysis from SAS.
Welcome!
Welcome to the SAS for the Macintosh Resource Page.
SAS is a large and powerful program for managing and analyzing data; the Mac is a computer that does an amazing amount of stuff. This page is about the intersection of the two.
The goal of this page is to provide information and resources to support users of SAS on the Macintosh. I used SAS on the Mac regularly from mid-1997 until August 1999; I am now working as an application developerin SAS under Windows. I still use both SAS and the Mac OS, it's just that I rarely use them together anymore.
To contact me, email [email protected] me know if you have any suggestions for additions or changes, some breaking news, or some information you think other Mac SAS users might benefit from seeing.
- Open VirtualBox, click on the machine labeled “SAS University Edition”, and click the “Start” button. Once the program has started, a window should appear with a black screen and white text. (Note: This window must remain open until you are done with your session with SAS. Closing this window will cause issues with the program).
- It is a SAS inbuilt procedure used to export the SAS data sets for writing the. SAS Enterprise Guide offers developers a range of ways to operate code. You can sort a system like you perform in Screen Supervisor, but you can furthermore use the point-and-click functions of SA S i9000 Enterprise Guide to produce program s that you can after that.
- Alternatives to SAS for Windows, Linux, Mac, Web, Software as a Service (SaaS) and more. Filter by license to discover only free or Open Source alternatives. This list contains a total of 25+ apps similar to SAS. List updated: 6/26/2020 1:52:00 PM.
News:
Minor Update to Mac OS SAS
As part of their Y2K fix rollout, SAS released a minor bug-fix update to SAS for Mac OS. This release identifies itself as 6.12 TS051; SAS has a Fix list on their website. The Mac OS FAQ on their site says that themost recent release is TS070, but as far as I can tell this is incorrect and TS051 is as recent as it gets.
Future of SAS under Mac OS
The most frequent question I get from visitors to this page is about thefuture of SAS under Mac OS. SAS for Mac OS is still only available inversion 6.12, although on most other platforms the current release of SASis version 8.2. SAS has stated that there will be no Mac OS release ofVersion 8, however they have not yet added the Mac to their official listof platforms for which no future development is being done.
As for Mac OS X, SAS 6.12 for Mac OS is not a Carbon-compliantapplication. According to SAS,V6.12 will run under the “Classic” environment of Mac OS X. There are nocurrent plans to issue a newer version of SAS for Mac OS.
It is possible that there will someday be another version of SAS underMac OS. Mac OS has not been added to the official list ofplatforms for which there is no longer any development taking place. Sincethere was once a release of SAS for the NeXT platform, some of the basicgroundwork for a Mac OS X port may already be in place. In addition, SAShas a strong record of supporting and developing for Unix systems and hasrecently released SAS for Linux. So while they are not releasing Mac OSversions now, SAS has by no means become a Windows-only vendor.
I am disappointed, but I cannot fault SAS for this decision. They madethe effort to produce a Mac OS version in the first place, and the decisionto stop making new releases was a financial one based on a relative lack ofrevenue from Mac OS licenses. This is in part a reflection of the scarcityof Mac OS in the business world; while Mac users in higher education tookadvantage of SAS, there was very little corporate use of the product. Since the vast majority of SAS revenue comes from corporate licensing, itwas not financially reasonable for them to continue with the Mac OSversion. I sincerely hope that over the next few years the market willshift so that SAS decides a Mac OS release will be profitable; if thathappens, I feel comfortable that SAS will choose to take advantage of thepotential revenue stream.
Version 8 Under Virtual PC
One alternative that still exists, especially if you mostly use SASoccasionally, is to run the Windows version of SAS using an emulator suchas Virtual PCfrom Connectix. I did this for a while (in 1998 and 1999) with Virtual PCversion 2 and SAS Version 7 on a Power Mac G3/233 desktop. Performance wasnot quite good enough to work comfortably with SAS for any length of time,but SAS programs executed reasonably well and I was able to use theemulation well enough to create screen shots for the documentation I waswriting at the time.
Both Virtual PC and Apple hardware have increased in speed since that time, while as far as I know SAS has not gotten significantly slower. Thus, it may well be that Virtual PC 4 on G4 hardware provides a good enough user experience to use that as a means of running the current version of SAS under Mac OS. Anyone who has tried the Virtual PC/ SAS combination on a newer Mac is invited to let me know how well it works; I will try to post any results or comments that I get to help you know if this would be an acceptable choice for your situation.
SAS AppleScripts Available Here!
Here are two script packages to make SAS on the Mac easier to run. Click on the icon (or select the substitute link in non-graphical browsers) to download the package described. In some browsers, you may want to option-click to download the files. (These script packages should work properly with SAS 6.12 and with SAS 6.10.)
TheDrop SAS script (49K) allows you to run a SAS program in 'batch mode' bydropping the program file onto the script icon. The current version is1.0.1, which is simply version 1.0 with improved documentation.
William Lisowski generously updated the BBEdit SAS ScriptPackage (176K) to work with BBEdit 6.0, which has a newscripting interface which caused the BBEdit 4.0 scripts to fail.
The BBEdit SAS Script Package (74K) allows you to use BBEdit 4.0 from Bare Bones Software as a front endfrom SAS. The main script lets you submit a SAS job and view the outputfrom within BBEdit. Other scripts let you use standard Mac dialog boxes toselect files or folders and then automatically insert the full directorypath into your program.
Each script package is a binhexed self-expanding Stuffit archive (i.e.,a .sea.hqx file).
Some Reports
I've written some brief reports on some topics of interest or utility to SAS users on the Macintosh.
Additional Notes
PROC MIXED Performance Notes
The performance notes formerly in this space have been removed, and the project to set up a benchmarking process for Mac SAS to see what affects performance has been put on a back burner. It turns out that the vastly different time requirements for PROC MIXED on two machines were due to a slight variation in the PROC MIXED code rather than to machine configurations. This variation did not affect the estimates produced by SAS, but did increase run time up to twentyfold.
The difference involves the form of the RANDOM statement. The“fast” version usedand the “slow” version usedwhere x1 and x2 are class variables. These are the same model; theyproduce the same estimates. However, the difference in computation time issignificant. Somewhat confusingly, SAS documentation suggests that thesecond method can actually be faster!
It turns out that the key is the number of levels of the class variable. In my test data, x1 had five levels (x2 had about 45 levels, and there were about 2000 observations). It turns out that factoring out x1 (as shown in the second example) is faster only if x1 has a relatively large number of levels. If x1 has a small number of levels, factoring out x1 can, as I saw, greatly increase the execution time.
This is not Mac specific (similar increases show up under Solaris), but it's worth knowing if you use PROC MIXED.
Some Links
Here are some links to parts of the SAS web site of particular interestto Mac users:
- The main page for SAS TechnicalSupport.
- AdministratorDocumentation for the Mac.
- The GeneralMac FAQ list.
- The Mac FileTransport FAQ list.
- The Mac FTP DownloadArea, including the SAS Tools application and a couple of bugfixes.
- The Mac Usage NotesDownload Area, with Mac usage notes in export file format.
Feedback
Let me know what you think of this site via email ([email protected]).
Disclaimer
In maintaining these pages, I do not work for or speak on behalf of SAS.
SAS and the SAS System are trademarks of SAS. Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer. Other brand and productnames used herein are trademarks of their respective companies.
This page was developed on Macintosh, using Alpha 6.5and Color It! 3.2.
Page last updated 7/21/1.
Sas For Macintosh
Currently there is not a version of SAS available for the Mac OS X operating system. However users can install VirtualBox on their mac. VirtualBox will allow the user to run SAS inside a virtual machine and access SAS from Mac OS with the data and SAS programs in a folder on Mac.
- Computer
- Mac OS X 10.8 or later
- 64 bit hardware
- One of the following web browsers:
- Apple Safari 6.0 or later
- Mozilla Firefox 21 or later
- Google Chrome 27 or later
- Software:
- SAS University Edition virtual image downloaded to your local system
- Available from: https://www.sas.com/en_ca/software/university-edition/download-software.html#
- VirtualBox for OS X 4.3.16 or later software
- Available from: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads/
- SAS University Edition virtual image downloaded to your local system
The VirtualBox Quick Start Guide available at: http://support.sas.com/software/products/university-edition/docs/en/SASUniversityEditionQuickStartVirtualBox.pdf
- Download VirtualBox:
- Go to the Virtual box download page: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads/
- From the Virtual-5.xx platform packages select OS X Hosts.
- If your browse asks to Open or Save the file select Save (for default download location) or Save As for a location of your choice
- The file VirtualBox-5.x.y-zzz-OSX.dmg will begin downloading
- Locate the file VirtualBox-5.x.y-zzz-OSX.dmg
- Double click the file to have its contents mounted
- A screen will open prompting you to double click the VirtualBox.mpkg installer file
- This will start the installation process. Note: you will be prompted to select a location to install VirtualBox.
- After the installation is complete you will find VirtualBox in the Applications folder in the Finder
Download the SAS University Edition File for VirtualBox
- Go to http://www.sas.com/en_us/software/university-edition/download-software.html
- log in to your profile. if you do not have one, create one using your Queen's email. You will receive a activation email from SAS. Follow the instruction to activate and set password.
- Look for the Download the SAS University Edition vApp
- Click Get download
- Click I agree to the Terms & Conditions
- Click Continue
- The next page will open
- Click Download
- if prompted to save or run the file, select Save to save the file in your Downloads directory
- Create a shared folder for your data that is available to both the SAS University Edition virtual image and to your local system
- On your local computer create a SASUniversityEdition folder
- Note: This folder can not require administrative rights to access it
- You will need to be able to locate this folder readily
- Within the SASUniversityEdition folder create a subfolder named myfolders
- On your local computer create a SASUniversityEdition folder
- Launch VirtualBox
- From the File menu select Import Appliance
- The Appliance to import screen will open
- Click the folder icon to the right of the field
- A file browser screen will open
- Select the SAS University Edition .ova file
- Click Open
- Click Continue
- The Appliance Settings screen will open
- Click Import
- The imported virtual machine is displayed in the Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager screen
- Note: if the message drives in use is displayed, click Ignore
- Select Machine > Settings
- Click Shared Folders
- The Shared Folders screen will open
- In the Upper right of the screen click the + (plus) sign.
- The Add Share screen will open
- In the Folder Path field, click the arrow and select Other.
- A file browser screen will open
- Select the myfolders folder you created, and then click Choose. This folder is mapped to the MyFolders folder in ASA Studio
- Note: the shared folder name is case sensitive
- In the Add Share screen
- Confirm that Read-only is NOT selected
- Click Auto-mount
- Click Make Permanent. Note: If the Make Permanent is not present, you do not need to do anything.
- Click OK
- If you wish to create additional shared folders you can do so by following the same instructions. They will appear in the SAS Studio under Folder Shortcuts
- Click OK
Once VirtualBox is configure (imported: “unvbasicvapp_xxx__ova_en_sp0_1.ova”) and the resulting virtual machine is running (turned on in VirtualBox), you access SAS via the web browser in your Mac (Safari, Chrome, Firefox) at address: http://localhost/10080
Sas For Macs
- Open a browser
- In the location bar enter http://localhost/10080
- The SAS University Edition vApp will now be running and ready for you to use.
Getting Help
- Support is from SAS
- Visit the SAS University Edition Help Center to learn what you need to know to get up and running with SAS University Edition.
- SAS Analytics U Online Community
- Get what you need for teaching and learning SAS. Connect with fellow SAS users to ask questions, share ideas and best practices, collaborate on projects and get peer support. Join the community now.
Last Updated: January 17, 2018