Spiker -

a free GUI program for tetrode spike clustering.

• Function: viewing and interactive clustering of tetrode (multielectrode) recordings.
• Input format: raw data file, multi-channel (up to 16 channels total, up to 4 groups of channels), samples are 16-bit words, any byte order.
• Output format: ASCII text: cluster number and time stamp of the event (other user-defined formats are possible ).
• Clustering principle: manual, in 6 projections of 4-dimensional amplitude space. User interactively selects areas belonging to clusters.
• Built-in viewers: raw data waveforms, waveforms for clusters, time histograms and raster plots of spikes, 6 projections of 4-dimensional amplitude space in point/density representation modes.
• Source code: Spiker is written in C using Galaxy - a platform-independent C library and GUI builder that allow easy portability between platforms - ideally just recompilation on the target platform is required. Source code is available at request, it can be compiled using MS Visual C++ on the Windows platform and the regular CC compiler on DEC Alpha.  Unfortunately the company (Visix), which was making Galaxy  went out of business in early 1998, and the development of Galaxy stopped. Though the sources of spiker are available, they are of little use to those who do not have Galaxy, since this library is required to compile spiker.
• Available platforms: Windows NT 4.0, Windows 95, DEC Alpha (Digital Unix).
• License: public domain software, GNU General Public License.

Downloading spiker:

To run spiker you'll need 3 files: binary file (platform-specific) and two resource files (common for all platforms, extension ".vr" ). Put all files in the same directory and run spiker from there. Note: some versions of Netscape web browser try to open .vr files in the text mode, when you click on the corresponding link. To download files you have to right-click on the link and use "Save Link As..." menu item.

Windows 95/NT

DEC Alpha (Digital Unix)

Sample data files to try spiker (big!) 

Spiker Manual (under development!)