Chapter 17. Odds and Ends
An odds and ends chapter is a good spot for topics and tips that don’t quite fit anywhere else. You’ve heard of Frequently Asked Questions. Think of this chapter as Possibly Helpful Auxiliary Topics.
Daughter hint: Oh daddy, that’s so 90’s.
How Much Data Can EViews Handle?
EViews holds workfiles in internal memory, i.e., in RAM, as opposed to on disk. Eight bytes are used for each number, so storing a million data points (1,000 series with 1,000 observations each, for example) requires 8 megabytes.
Data capacity isn’t an issue unless you have truly massive data needs, perhaps processing public use samples from the U.S. Census or records from credit card transactions. Current versions of EViews for 32-bit machines do have an out-of-the box limit of 4 million observations per series. If you are working on a 64-bit machine, you will be limited to 120 million observations per series.
Hint: Student versions of EViews place limits on the amount of data that may be saved and omit some of EViews’ more advanced features.
How Long Does It Take To Compute An Estimate?
Probably not long enough for you to care about.
On the author’s somewhat antiquated PC, computing a linear regression with ten right-hand side variables and 100,000 observations takes roughly one eye-blink.
Nonlinear estimation can take longer. First, a single nonlinear estimation step, i.e., one iteration, can be the equivalent of computing hundreds of regressions. Second, there’s no limit on how many iterations may be required for a nonlinear search. EViews’ nonlinear algorithms are both fast and accurate, but hard problems can take a while.
Freeze!
EViews’ objects change as you edit data, change samples, reset options, etc. When you have table output that you want to make sure won’t change, click the 
button to open a new window, disconnected from the object you’ve been working on—and therefore frozen.
You’ve taken a snapshot. Nothing prevents you from editing the snapshot—that’s the stan-
button.
button, EViews opens a dialog prompting you to choose 
icon, or a graph, shown with the 
icon. No matter how an object began life, once frozen you can adjust its appearance by using customization tools for tables or graphs.
A Comment On Tables—395
A Comment On Tables
Every object has a label view providing a place to enter remarks about the object. Tables take this a step further. You can add a comment to any cell in a table. Select a cell and choose
Proc/Insert/Edit Comment… or right-click on a cell to bring up the context menu.
Cells with com-
ments are marked with little red triangles in the upper righthand corner. When the mouse passes over the cell, the comment is displayed in a note box.
