In 1988, version 1.0 of DNA Strider by Christian Marck was described in Nucleic Acids Research (1). It was the first DNA analysis program designed specifically for the Macintosh. Written in C language and compiled with the Apple MPW C compiler, the program ran extremely efficiently and was able to analyze sequences of up to 32,500 characters very quickly. It combined standard features of Macintosh programs with the classical types of analyses that molecular biologists require for handling sequence data. This program was distributed free of charge to anyone who requested it.