Re: Apple IIe used for DNA analysis!

[John_L._Graham@adbbs.antioch.edu (John L. Graham)]

heh, heh, you'd love the lab I work in :) The most numerous workstation we
have are Apple IIs. We used to have everything from II+s to IIGS's, but
recently the GS's have been more numerous simply because they're cheap and we
get'm when we can. Ooops! I just remembered I recently took a II+ out of
storage to make an analog-to-digital converter calibrator. I wanted to use a
II+ because the nice big cut-outs in the back plane makes it easy to run the
ribbon cables in and out of the case. Anyway, we've got IIs running
everything from gas chromotographs to lasers. We use them not out of any
sense of nostalgia, but because they're so darned versatile and easy to
program. For example, as soon as I'm off of here I'll be working on
modifiying the software on a IIe that's running one of our experimental
spectrophotometers. I've got a noise problem in the research I'm doing and I
want to write in some signal averaging. Our experience has been that for the
type of research we do canned software and hardware just doesn't cut it. It's
GREAT for routine stuff, but get into an area of special needs and you're
stuck. On the IIs we wrote all the code ourselves and can easily get into it
and make any changes we want.

I digress. Apple IIs are still playing a valuable role in cutting-edge
research. Oh yes, we tried this with Macs, and it just didn't work out. We
relegated the Macs and most of the PCs to the office for data processing and
report preparation, which they do a fine job of. Soooo, at least in our lab
we've been very successful running a mixed platform environment and are using
equipment where it serves best. Thank goodness for ASCII :)

Have fun!

John