Use of Korean Letter "Hangul" and Special Characters in a Chromosome Image Analyzer, QuipsTM 3.0 Operable Only in Mac OS 8.0 / 대한임상병리학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Nowadays, many laboratories use computer and karyotyping software in chromosome analysis on the development of computer and digital imaging technology. And some of these softwares, such as QuipsTM (Vysis, USA; QuipsTM), are those operated in Macintosh operating system (Mac OS) because it had been considered superior to IBM PC in imaging works. However, Korean users have had difficulties in use of Korean letter "Hangul" because many of these hadn't been operated in Korean Macintosh System (KH series). METHODS: We used a karyotyping software of Macintosh QuipsTM 3.0, which is inconvenient to manage patient informations such as name, department, doctor's name and etc. In order to use "Hangul" in QuipsTM 3.0, we incorporated some files (WorldScript II and ScriptSwitcher 8 along with other files such as fonts, "Imrykki" and etc.) from KH 8.0 (Elex, Co; Korean Macintosh system) to Mac OS 8.0 (Apple, Inc; English Macintosh system). RESULTS: After modifing the operating system of Mac OS 8.0, we could use not only "Hangul", but also Chinese letter "Hanja" and special characters (e.g., "alpha", "-->", and etc). CONCLUSIONS: In using "Hangul" in data management and reporting, we became to be familiar with QuipsTM and had good responses from clinicians.