I have loaded a program on my PC called MacOpener for Windows (3.1, 95 or
NT) from DATAViz (http://www.dataviz.com/).  The program remains
transparent as far as any other features on the PC, but what it allows me
to do is to put a MAC formatted disk (3.5", Zip or Jaz) into its respective
drive and see the files on that disk.  Of course you cannot open most MAC
files with your PC programs because the file structures are incompatible,
however, TIFF's copied onto a MAC formatted disk can be opened and
manipulated with PHOTOSHOP on the PC because PHOTOSHOP opens this cross
platform graphic file.  Also WORD documents generated in WORD on the MAC,
and saved on a MAC-disk, can be opened with WORD in Office 95 or Office 97
on the PC.

I needed a solution to data collection and manipulation on my SGI driven
Noran confocal.  The SGI will recognize a MAC formatted Zip or Jaz
cartridge.  So Z-series, t-series, etc., that have been manipulated on the
SGI workstation and saved as TIFFS, QuickTime or MPEG movies, etc.  can be
taken away and read on either a MAC or PC computer.  My MAC users save
their stuff on the MAC formatted disks they use normally.  The PC folks
must get MAC formatted disks for the SGI, but they can open them up on
their PC with MacOpener installed.  In fact you can MAC-format a disk on
your PC with MacOpener installed. You will have to pay attention to file
extensions and MacOpener works only with high density floppy disks, but
it's small price for the convenience.

I have no financial connection with MacOpener; a very helpful MAC person
told me about the program.

At 05:14 PM 11/19/97 +0100, you wrote:
>Hello everybody
>
>We would like some help on the following problem. We have the Leica TCS
>Confocal system which has two linked computers, the VME and a 486 PC
>running Windows 3.1. We have a Jaz drive linked in to the PC.  We have
>tranferred cofocal files to a Jaz cartridge in the PC Jaz drive. We have
>then tried to open the Jaz cartridge in another Jaz drive linked to a
>Macintosh 7600/132 computer and got the message that the cartridge is
>unreadable and do we want to initialise it? There is nothing wrong with the
>cartridge. The cartridge was formatted on the 486 PC because we were told
>that if it were on the Macintosh even in PC format it would be unusable on
>the PC. Have other confocal users encountered this problem and what has
>been their solution? Does DOS mounter help? We would very much appreciate
>any help with this.
>
>Regards
>
>Mike Kane
>
>-----------------------
>Physiology Department
>University College
>Galway
>Ireland
>Ph: 353-91-524411
>Fx: 353-91-750544 (direct line); also 353-91-525700
>em: [log in to unmask]
>
>
Joseph E. Mazurkiewicz, Ph.D.
Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics A-68
Albany Medical College
Albany, NY  12208
Phone:  518-262-5381
Fax:    518-262-5748
e-mail: [log in to unmask]