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>Both Bernoulli and Optical Disk drives for the CONSORT 32 are available from
>Bering (see recent ads in Cytometry) however they are more expensive and
>certainly slower than the various SCSI devices available for Macintosh
>systems.
Provided that one has a Mac system, that may be true although the second
hand market for these devices for the HP is far lower than they used to be.
Ironically, SVGA monitors and the SCSI interface is also available on the HP
system as well. Unfortunately, the operating system supported by Consort 32
does not.
>Transfer of data from an HP CONSORT 32 to a Mac does indeed require both
>FACSNet for C32 and a TCP/IP protocol for the Mac (FACSNet for Mac or
>equivalent) as well as FACS Convert software (FCS 1.0 to FCS 2.0 conversion).
>This set-up allows the downloading of large numbers of data files but it is
>not particularly fast - I recently completed the downloading of approx 200Mb
>from C32 to Quadra 650 and found it took about 5 hours.
There is a far less expensive (and faster) alternative, and a more complete
TCP/IP implementation for the Consort 32 than FACSNet. Anyone interested
can contact me for details. Ideally, for those that do not have the Mac
and considering the Bernoulli or optical approach for the HP would be better
off archiving their data on the PC through a similar network. FTP (TCP/IP
compliant) code can be had now for the PC (if you aren't running Windows NT)
for free via the Internet. You still need an ethernet card (haven't learned
how to download those yet).
>Diskette transfer is a less costly route requiring CONSORT File Exchange -
>CFE (lets Mac read HP diskettes formatted with option 2) and FACS Convert
>software - FC (FCS 1.0 to FCS 2.0 conversion). I was wary of this route at
>first having experienced speed problems with other conversion routines in the
>past. Rather surprisingly I have found that CFE allows the Mac to copy HP
>diskette files to its hard disk approximately twice as quickly as the HP
>itself can. FC then converts the file header in approximately 10 / 14 seconds
>per file. Once in FCS 2.0 they can be archived onto MO disk or Zip as
>required. Be aware that once in FCS 2.0 format the files cannot be returned
>to FCS 1.0 for analysis on the HP - so you would need a list mode analysis
>software on the Mac (such as CELLQuest) unless you have LYSYS II v 2.0 on
>your HP which can read FCS 2.0 data.
I have a PC program that will also run on the Mac (under DOS) that will read
HP diskettes formatted under Consort 30 and Consort 32. If there is any
interest, the program could easily be modified to change the FCS1.0 label in
the header to FCS2.0 (or even back again if necessary). If CellQuest
requires additional keywords to be added to the text header (seems somewhat
contrary to the spirit of the FCS standard, although, especially considering
list-mode files created by the same cytometer manufacturer), I can add those
as well. For those interested and on tight budgets this program is inexpensive.
===================================================================
Richard A. Cox
FLOW CYTOMETRY SUPPORT
PO Box 3450, Saratoga, CA 95070-1450 USA
Internet Web Page: http://www.hooked.net/users/racox/index.html
Voice: 408/370-6327 FAX: 408/370-6487
Email: racox@hooked.net
===================================================================
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