Curiously enough, we did just what you are asking about a few months ago. The TSQ has never worked properly ever since !
It is currently completely out of commission while an eprom chip is replaced. One thing that Finnigan did not make clear to me is that in order to run NT/xcalibur, it is necessary to make a few changes to the boards etc in the instrument, and once they do that, there is no way to return to the Unix/icis operating system. Additionally, the ICIS system then can not be used for data browsing, ICL procedure editing or anything like that, as it is stuck in the "waiting for connection" mode, and it is never going to find one.
As far as the performance of the xcalibur operating system when it does work, it is just fine. Its a kind of hybrid of the old TSQ software and the LCQ software. However, ours is not very stable, and has quite a few interesting bugs. Examples: the syslm settings are lost every time the instrument is restarted (which makes your masses very very wrong for a while till you work it out); some of the instrument control methods I created have already become mangled and generate error messages when I try to use them; the display screen on the TSQ instrument panel scrolls downwards continually once the computer starts collecting data (which makes it very difficult to see if the API pressure is OK); every now and again it stops collecting data at a random point for no apparent reason (usually when the peptides are just about to to start eluting); and so on and so on. I have also noticed a very sudden drop in sensitivity of our CID spectra, but not in MS mode. This has become a major b!
!
ear to fix as we can not tell if
it is related to software, hardware, or both.
I gather that other people have had the xcalibur system installed and have had no problems, so ours may just be an unusual case. Personally, I would recommend waiting as long as possible before changing to Xcalibur, since it is still in version 1.0 and things can only get better. I would also suggest making sure that the whole installation process is fully explained to you before you allow anyone to touch your Unix box.
I hope this information is of some use to you. I would be very happy to hear from anyone else on this list who has done the same software installation, either to join me in a collective whine, or to tell me that their system is absolutely fine and so ours should be running optimally sometime soon.
talk to you later
Paul
___________________________
Dr. Paul A. Haynes
Genetics Institute
87 Cambridge Park drive
Cambridge
MA 02140
ph: (617) 665 7529
___________________________
>>> Axel Ducret <axel_ducret@merck.com> - 7/21/99 11:27 AM >>>
Hello all,
Among all the concerns that we have all on the Y2K problem, a number of
companies are recommanding to switch from UNIX environement to a NT platform .
We have at Merck Frosst a SSQ7000 and a TSQ7000, both running under the original
DECUnix 4.0. The TSQ has also BioWorks version 3.2 (the latest available) With
Y2K approaching, we had to upgrade the operating software to 4.0D, an operation
that has been labeled as "no problem" by a Finnigan tech representative.
However, we now by experience that we will probably experience a couple of
glitches that were not "foreseable" by Finnigan. It does not help that Finnigan
does not support anymore UNIX, of course.
Finnigan has approached us recently and suggested that we switched to Excalibur,
their new NT interface. The price to switch from our UNIX box to a NT
workstation is quite resonable and we do not have any major reason not to switch
(in particular, the SEQUEST version in BioWorks 3.2 contains a couple of bugs
that we know Finnigan will not correct for the UNIX operating software).
However, I am bit concerned about the stability of the system and the bugs that
might be hidden in the new software.
I would like to know whether any of you had the chance to run the TSQ7000 under
this new environement and whether you would be willing to share your thoughts
with me.
In advance, thank you for any piece of advice
Axel Ducret
-- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Axel Ducret, Ph.D. Senior Research Biologist Merck-Frosst Canada Inc. Dept. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology P.O. Box 1005 Pointe-Claire-Dorval PQ H9R 4P8 Canada
tel. + (514) 428-3428 fax + (514) 428-4900
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