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WinLTP - Frequently Asked Questions
1. Does WinLTP run on the Apple Mac computer? Reanalysis, yes. Online/Acquisition, probably. Neither runs as a native OSX application, but runs in Windows installed on a Mac. Apple has fairly recently converted their Mac computer and operating system to run on Intel processor / Windows compatible computers. Apple actually includes an application called BootCamp that can start (or boot) the Intel Mac computer into an user installed copy of Windows XP, Vista or 7. There is also another new type of software, call virtual machine software, that can enable your Windows computer to simultaneously run Windows and Linux, or your Mac computer to run Mac OSX and Windows simultaneously along side each other. In our lab we often run the WinLTP Reanalysis program on Macs running Windows in a virtual machine created by Parallels or VMware Fusion, that runs along side OSX. Furthermore, although we have not yet tested the WinLTP Online/Acquisition program running on a Mac booted by BootCamp into Windows XP, Vista or 7, and on a Digidata 132x board, or a National Instruments M- or X-Series board in a PCI or PCIexpress slot, we have tested a National Instruments M-Series USB 2.0 board on a Mac notebook booted by BootCamp into Windows 7, and with the limited testing we have done, the board seems to run OK. (Note that we do not recommend buying an M-Series USB 2.0 board because over the long-term, they have proved unreliable on Windows computers.) Therefore, we think it is likely that WinLTP Online/Acquisition program will run fine on an Mac booted by BootCamp into Windows XP, Vista or 7, and on a Digidata 132x board, or a National Instruments M- or X-Series board in a PCI or PCIexpress slot. However, we have not directly tested this. It is highly unlikely that we will write a native WinLTP application for OSX on the Mac. Basically, we are far, far more interested in adding functionality to WinLTP rather than transferring WinLTP to another operating system. If we could just click a button on our development system to do so, we would do it, but realistically, it would probably mean a complete rewrite of WinLTP. Plus, using virtual machine operating systems like Parallels and VMware Fusion on the Mac to run Windows is the future (in fact it is here now!). Now a computer isn't a Windows or Mac or Linux computer - it's what you want, maybe all three. WinLTP Reanalysis runs in Parallels and VMware Fusion on the Mac, and we may soon find that WinLTP Online/Acquisition will too, like it does in BootCamp.
2. Will WinLTP run on any boards other than the National Instruments M- and X-Series PCI/PCIe or the Axon Digidata 132x data acquisition boards? There are no current plans for WinLTP to run the new Axon Digidata 1440A data acquisition board. And it is highly unlikely that WinLTP will run any of the CED data acquisition boards, or any of the Instrutech data acquisition boards. It's a lot of work installing a new type of data acquisition board in a multitasking program such as WinLTP. I would much rather put the work into increasing WinLTP program functionality. Also, WinLTP can never support the National Instruments E-Series data acquisition boards because they do no have streaming digital output. WinLTP will hopefully support the future National Instruments X-Series USB 3.0 data acquisition boards. The current M-Series USB 2.0 data acquisition boards have proved unreliable with WinLTP. To me the M- and X-series boards are functionally extremely good with WinLTP and come at a very reasonable price. In addition, the M-Series boards can run some other very good data acquisition including Axograph Scientific's AxoGraph X, National Instruments' LabView, WaveMetrics' IGOR, John Dempster's Strathclyde Electrophysiology Suite (WinWCP and WinEDR), Silver lab's Nclamp, QUB data acquisition, and mPhys MatLab data acquisition program.
3. What are the advantages of the M- and X-Series PCI/PCIe boards versus the Digidata 132x boards? a) You can still buy the M- and X-Series boards from National Instruments and will be able to for a long time into the future. Molecular Devices no longer sells the legacy Digidata 132x boards. b) The delay in response to keyboard input for altering protocol values is much less for the M- and X-Series PCI/PCIe boards (0.5 sec) compared to the Digidata 132x boards (5.0 sec).
4. Will WinLTP's author be willing to write any WinLTP scripts? Yes, within reason. I know it can be extremely tough when trying to write scripts for a system you don't know anything about, so I'm glad to get users started in script programming. Plus, the script programming component of WinLTP is the part of WinLTP I'm most proud about (along with the multitasking - the rest is pretty much grunt work). And I think that the WinLTP scripting is bettered by few if any electrophysiology data acquisition systems.
5. Will WinLTP reanalyze pop-spikes in binary multi-sweep pClamp ABF files? You must first convert your multi-sweep ABF files to Axon Text Files (*.ATF), then convert the ATF file to multiple sweep ADsweep files using my ATF2SWPS.EXE utility, and then reanalyze pop-spikes in the ADsweep files with WinLTP.
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