Magneto-optic access surmounts obstacles

Radiologists who toss their expensive clinical workstations in favor of standard desktop PCs can still extract DICOM images from magneto-optic disks, according to researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Platform-independent industry standard connection cards now provide more flexibility for PACS administrators.

Magneto-optic recording can raise compatibility and accessibility issues because many of these disks can be read only by the manufacturer's proprietary hardware and software. Researchers at Beth Israel developed a method to circumvent the problem. Its cost is low ($1500) when compared with a typical clinical workstation ($50,000 to $100,000), and the installation is basically plug-and-play.

A standard desktop PC running Windows 2000 Professional (Microsoft) and an external 5.2-GB magneto-optic storage drive (RMO-S551/SD, Sony) serve as the primary workstation for data extraction. The PC and drive are connected by a commercially available PCI SCSI card (model 2906, Adaptec).

Driver software for the interface card or the magneto-optic drive is not required when using Windows 2000 Professional, but Windows NT, Mac OS, Linux, and Unix users will need to install drivers.