MOLEC, Review I (Owen, G. Scott; Currie, James O.)

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MOLEC G. Scon Owenand J a m s 0.Cumie, Cambridge Development Lab. 36 Pleasant Street, Watertown, MA 02172 Hardware: Apple II+, 64K; IBM PC, 128K. color graphics Sonware: Apple DOS 3.3; IBM DOS 1.1 or IBM UCSD P-System. Components: Program and sample data on one disk; user manual Level and subiect: General chem.. oraanic chem, throigh physical and inorganic Cosk 5150

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Summary Ratings Reviewer Revlever Category Ease o f w e

I

II

good good excellent good

Subjbct maner content Pedamic value excellem good SfYdentreaction excellent average

Revlew I MOLEC is a molecular structure graphics program that is intended to offer a variety of different ways of looking a t molecular geometries. The program is available for the Apple I1 and IBM PC systems having the minimum hardware listed above. The orogram has been tested on both systems'and system-speciftc features are noted where appropriate and important. The program is menu driven and comes with a set of molecules already in data files. For example, in the IBM version the molecules available are methane. ethane. boat and chair cyclohexane, propene, ribose. ATP, acetone, morphine. ghcuse, anti. gauche. and syn butane, hydrogen, methane in a tetrahedron, a square, and a cube. Other structures may be stored by the user on additional dnca disks (vide infra). From the choice of molecules it is apparent that the primary audience is intended to be the undereraduate organic student. However, my experience with the system, particularly with the addition of other structures, is that students in introductory chemistry as well as those in more advance courses can find features of the MOLEC program that are useful and interesting.

When a molecule has been selected for study, the menu offers a number of options for examining the structure. In the default mode a line structure is drawn in which the ntoms art. identitied by their symlx,ls ww the bun& appear as lrlark liuts. The sine ut the mol~rulehas been scaled st, that it fits the display screen. The student can now begin to examine the structure in more detail. The d~fierentstructural 8,ptiuns ~nrlude$ p a w f~lhnz,hall-snrl.stiok.;~n