ABI file reading apps?

[Dr. P.L. Taylor]

>I'm sure this has been asked before, but what software will allow you to
>open, view, manipulate ABI DNA sequencer Mac files?  I understand DNAStar's
>Lasergene can, are there any others (GeneJockey II?), any freeware that
>will do this?  Do ABI produce 'reader' software?  Thanks.
>
>Fergus Doherty,
>dept. Biochemistry,
>University Medical School,
>Queen's Medical Centre,
>Nottingham NG7 2UH
>Tel: 602 709366  FAX 602 422225 Internet: mbxfd at unicorn.nott.ac.uk

GeneJockeyII opens chromatogram files and displays the contents, rather
better than ABI's own software.  For example you can change all the colours
used (12% of the male population has deficient colour vision and most of
them have difficulty distinguishing between red and green - so what colours
do ABI choose for their traces?).  You can edit the base calls, but not
save the data back to the original file, as GJII treats it as read-only.
GJII will also convert all the Ns to the full degenerate codes, and give
you a graph of predicted error rate against base number, which you can
use to select the 'good bit' of sequence to extract for alignment.
There's a demo at :
http://www.ebi.ac.uk/
ftp.ebi.ac.uk /pub/software/mac

Other software I know of which will open ABI files:

ABI's own programs : Analysis, SeqEd and Sequence Navigator.
DNAStar/LaserGene
MacVector.
GeneCodes' Sequencher.

Phil Taylor                         |        MRC Reproductive Biology Unit
                                    |        Centre for Reproductive Biology
                                    |        37 Chalmers Street
mbplt at seqnet.dl.ac.uk               |        Edinburgh EH3 9EW
ptaylor at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk              |        Scotland.