This manual provides reference to UNICORN^® for Oligo Synthesis version 1.10, referred to as UNICORN OS, from Amersham Biosciences. UNICORN OS is a complete package for control and supervision of oligonucleotide synthesis systems, suitable for use with Amersham Biosciences OligoPilot II and OligoProcess. All functionality associated with UNICORN OS consists of software which runs on an IBM-compatible PC under the OS/2 operating environment, and hardware for interfacing the controlling PC to the synthesis module. The control platform and functions within UNICORN OS are essentially the same as for UNICORN version 2.10, the latter developed by Amersham Biosciences for chromatographic separations.

UNICORN OS is supplied with system strategies and templates for oligonucleotide synthesis, although it is possible to perform chromatographic separations associated with UNICORN by obtaining the appropriate strategies and templates from Amersham Biosciences. In the writing of this manual, those functions that are directly relevant for UNICORN OS are described. Functions that are more relevant to chromatographic separations, such as Scouting, BufferPrep and some evaluation functions are not discussed in this manual.