Communications software packages solve a variety of laboratory computer problems. They let incompatible computers talk to each other, for example, and they allow scientists to access laboratory computers from home or in the field. While I haven’t found any single program that will solve all my lab’s communications needs, a combination of two or three fairly inexpensive packages should be the answer for most labs. In my toxicity testing laboratory, when we need to transfer files fro

For almost 10 years, I’ve been looking for a truly portable computer to take into the field. But at 28 pounds, the first portables—the Osborne and the Kaypro—deserved the term “luggables;” it took a sumo wrestler or a defensive lineman to really feel comfortable car- rying them. The same was true for the first 32-pound Compaq “portable.” The problem was the CRT. It was heavy—even Osborne’s 9-inch version—and together with the associ

A new generation of dot-matrix printers has hit the market, and these devices are ideal for the scientist whose institution can’t af- ford to put a laser printer in every office. The new 24-pin units provide better print quality and more time-saving features than older 24-pin printers, yet they cost much less than laser printers. Now a small laboratory can get high-resolution text and graphics (180 X 360 dote per square inch) for what used to be a low-resolution-only price of aroun

I’m convinced that real-time display is a must in data acquisition. I think I reached that conclusion one day after setting up an experiment during which I wired a dog to certain appropriate instruments and administered a drug to the animal. My data acquisition system allowed the data to go directly to the computer, although the screen display lagged considerably behind the sampling. Thus it was well into the process that I realized the data had stopped making sense, a wire had wiggled l