Re: FACS PC Acquisition

Dave Coder (dave@nucleus.immunol.washington.edu)
Tue, 20 Apr 93 17:49:06 -0700

Data acquisition from cytometers that is bidirectional (as in the
FACScan, FACStar, Elite, etc.) requires that both data from the
cytometer be collected (most likely to disk), and instrument
operation values be sent from the computer to the cytometer. This
kind of instrument control from the computer is reasonably tricky.
Cytomation is the only company to offer commercial solutions.

The more simple problem of data acquisition can be accomplished far
more easily, but I don't know of any solutions other than that from
Cytomation mentioned above.

For older instruments, FACS440 and several predecessors, there are a
variety of acquisition solutions that have been implemented. These
include various DEC-based systems (Electric Desk, ACQ at NIH, and
others) and the PC-based acquisition system that I put together (an
abstract is in the Cytometry supplement for the ISAC meeting in
Bergen). The system allows 4-parameter acquisition on a PC and can
run effectively up to 10,000 cells per second. It can run quite
nicely in DESQView and probably does fine as a non-Windows
application.

Dave Coder
Dept. Immunology
University of Washington

Internet: dcoder@u.washington.edu