Plasmid Drawing Programs for PCs?

[Bernard Murray]

In article <478ehr$rkl at ns.oar.net>, bernstein at wsu-id.dayton.oh.usÚ says...
>
>Rob Robson <sksrobsn at reading.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>>Anybody know of a good drawiung package for drawing and labelling plasmids 
that can be used with IBM PC clones?
>
>The best program we have seen (and used) is called "Clone Manager for
>Windows", V 4.0, from Scientific and Educational Software (sorry, no
>address). Not sure about the current commercial cost, but it is
>probably several hundred $, but worth it. The following is a blurb
>extracted from their Help File -
[SNIP]
>Good luck! I am not affiliated with Clone Manager.
>

You might also want to have a look at WinPlas from Rich Goldstein
(demo version available at http://www.phantom.com/~goldstei/winplas.html).
This runs at $300 for the first copy.  I like it as you can draw maps based
on either a real sequence or a simple schematic.  The initial drawing is
also very easy - mainly just point and shoot.  The major plus is that Rich
is very open to comments and criticism so your feedback should have an
effect.  I am currently running WinPlas 2.0 which has problems with the
output of figures and with the editing of existing figures.  Rich has
said that he is working on fixes so I will keep you posted
(I would recommend NOT buying it until these problems are fixed)
Another consideration is that copy protection is based on a hardware key
so this can be a problem if you want a whole network to have access to a
single copy (one at a time, of course).  Overall this should be a very nice
program when it has matured.
		Bernard

Disclaimer: No connection with Goldstein software except as a customer and
            critic.

Bernard Murray, Ph.D.
bernard at elsie.nci.nih.gov  (National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda MD, USA)