The DNA inspector II a program for analyzing and manipulating DNA sequence on the Apple Macintosh

This paper describes a new set of linked programs for analyzing and manipulating DNA sequences using the Apple Macintosh computer. The Macintosh is ideally suited for this purpose because of its extensive use of icons, pull-down menus, and dialog boxes, which form a very intuitive user interface, and its high-resolution graphics, which produce brilliant displays. Because of the extreme ease of use, the learning time for using the program is literally on the order of 5–10 minutes, thus making available computer analyses for many molecular geneticists who previously were not willing to invest the larger amount of time needed to learn how to run the analysis routines in other programs. The DNA Inspector II carries out all of the day-to-day routines needed in a molecular genetics lab. Results of the analyses can be saved to disk, printed, or transferred directly to other applications (e.g., word processing) through the “clipboard, ” an area of memory shared by all applications. The availability of Apple's relatively low-cost LaserWriter printer allows publication-quality figures to be generated very easily from within the program.