Developer(s) | Approximate date | Technology | Comments |
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Crystallographers | < 1960 | Hand-drawn | Crystal structures, with hidden atom and bond removal. Often clinographic projections. |
Johnson, Motherwell | c. 1970 | Pen plotter | ORTEP, PLUTO. Very widely deployed for publishing crystal structures. |
Cyrus Levinthal, Bob Langridge, Ward, Stots | 1966 | Project MAC display system, two-degree of freedom, spring-return velocity joystick for rotating the image. | First protein display on screen. System for interactively building protein structures. |
Barry | 1969 | LINC 300 computer with a dual trace oscilloscope display. | Interactive molecular structure viewing system. Early examples of dynamic rotation, intensity depth·cueing, and side-by-side stereo. Early use of the small angle approximations (a = sin a, 1 = cos a) to speed up graphical rotation calculations. |
Ortony | 1971 | Designed a stereo viewer (British patent appl. 13844/70) for molecular computer graphics. | Horizontal two-way (half-silvered) mirror combines images drawn on the upper and lower halves of a CRT. Crossed polarizers isolate the images to each eye. |
Ortony | 1971 | Light pen, knob. | Interactive molecular structure viewing system. Select bond by turning another knob until desired bond lights up in sequence, a technique later used on the MMS-4 system below, or by picking with the light pen. Points in space are specified with a 3-D ”bug" under dynamic control. |
Barry, Graesser, Marshall | 1971 | CHEMAST: LINC 300 computer driving an oscilloscope. Two-axis joystick, similar to one used later by GRIP-75 (below). | Interactive molecular structure viewing system. Structures dynamically rotated using the joystick. |
Tountas and Katz | 1971 | Adage AGT/50 display | Interactive molecular structure viewing system. Mathematics of nested rotation and for laboratory-space rotation. |
Perkins, Piper, Tattam, White | 1971 | Honeywell DDP 516 computer, EAL TR48 analog computer, Lanelec oscilloscope, 7 linear potentiometers. Stereo. | Interactive molecular structure viewing system. |
Wright | 1972 | GRIP-71 at UNC-CH: IBM System/360 Model 40 time-shared computer, IBM 2250 display, buttons, light pen, keyboard. | Discrete manipulation and energy relaxation of protein structures. Program code became the foundation of the GRIP-75 system below. |
Barry and North | 1972 | University of Oxford: Ferranti Argus 500 computer, Ferranti model 30 display, keyboard, track ball, one knob. Stereo. | Prototype large-molecule crystallographic structure solution system. Track ball rotates a bond, knob brightens the molecule vs. electron density map. |
North, Ford, Watson | Early 1970s | University of Leeds: DEC PDP·11/40 computer, Hewlett-Packard display. 16 knobs, keyboard, spring-return joystick. Stereo. | Prototype large-molecule crystallographic structure solution system. Six knobs rotate and translate a small molecule. |
Barry, Bosshard, Ellis, Marshall, Fritch, Jacobi | 1974 | MMS-4: Washington University in St. Louis, LINC 300 computer and an LDS-1 / LINC 300 display, custom display modules. Rotation joystick, knobs. Stereo. | Prototype large-molecule crystallographic structure solution system. Select bond to rotate by turning another knob until desired bond lights up in sequence. |
Cohen and Feldmann | 1974 | DEC PDP-10 computer, Adage display, push buttons, keyboard, knobs | Prototype large-molecule crystallographic structure solution system. |
Stellman | 1975 | Princeton University: PDP-10 computer, LDS-1 display, knobs | Prototype large-molecule crystallographic structure solution system. Electron density map not shown; instead an "H Factor" figure of merit is updated as the molecular structure is manipulated. |
Collins, Cotton, Hazen, Meyer, Morimoto | 1975 | CRYSNET, Texas A&M Univ. DEC PDP-11/40 computer, Vector General Series 3 display, knobs, keyboard. Stereo. | Prototype large-molecule crystallographic structure solution system. Variety of viewing modes: rocking, spinning, and several stereo display modes. |
Cornelius and Kraut | 1976 (approx.) | University of California at San Diego: DEC PDP-11/40 emulator (CalData 135), Evans and Sutherland Picture System display, keyboard, 6 knobs. Stereo. | Prototype large-molecule crystallographic structure solution system. |
(Yale Univ.) | 1976 (approx.) | PIGS: DEC PDP-11/70 computer, Evans and Sutherland Picture System 2 display, data tablet, knobs. | Prototype large-molecule crystallographic structure solution system. The tablet was used for most interactions. |
Feldmann and Porter | 1976 | NIH: DEC PDP—11/70 computer. Evans and Sutherland Picture System 2 display, knobs. Stereo. | Interactive molecular structure viewing system. Intended to display interactively molecular data from the AMSOM – Atlas of Macromolecular Structure on Microfiche. |
Rosenberger et al. | 1976 | MMS-X: Washington University in St. Louis, TI 980B computer, Hewlett-Packard 1321A display, Beehive video terminal, custom display modules, pair of 3-D spring-return joysticks, knobs. | Prototype (and later successful) large-molecule crystallographic structure solution system. Successor to the MMS-4 system above. The 3-D spring-return joysticks either translate and rotate the molecular structure for viewing or a molecular substructure for fitting, mode controlled by a toggle switch. |
Britton, Lipscomb, Pique, Wright, Brooks | 1977 | GRIP-75 at UNC-CH: Time-shared IBM System/360 Model 75 computer, DEC PDP 11/45 computer, Vector General Series 3 display, 3-D movement box from A.M. Noll and 3-D spring return joystick for substructure manipulation, Measurement Systems nested joystick, knobs, sliders, buttons, keyboard, light pen. | First large-molecule crystallographic structure solution. |
Jones | 1978 | FRODO and RING Max Planck Inst., Germany, RING: DEC PDP-11/40 and Siemens 4004 computers, Vector General 3404 display, 6 knobs. | Large-molecule crystallographic structure solution. FRODO may have run on a DEC VAX-780 as a follow-on to RING. |
Diamond | 1978 | Bilder Cambridge, England, DEC PDP-11/50 computer, Evans and Sutherland Picture System display, tablet. | Large-molecule crystallographic structure solution. All input is by data tablet. Molecular structures built on-line with ideal geometry. Later passes stretch bonds with idealization. |
Langridge, White, Marshall | Late 1970s | Departmental systems (PDP-11, Tektronix displays or DEC-VT11, e.g. MMS-X) | Mixture of commodity computing with early displays. |
Davies, Hubbard | Mid-1980s | CHEM-X, HYDRA | Laboratory systems with multicolor, raster and vector devices (Sigmex, PS300). |
Biosym, Tripos, Polygen | Mid-1980s | PS300 and lower cost dumb terminals (VT200, SIGMEX) | Commercial integrated modelling and display packages. |
Silicon Graphics, Sun | Late 1980s | IRIS GL (UNIX) workstations | Commodity-priced single-user workstations with stereoscopic display. |
EMBL - WHAT IF | 1989, 2000 | Machine independent | Nearly free, multifunctional, still fully supported, many free servers based on it |
Sayle, Richardson | 1992, 1993 | RasMol, Kinemage | Platform-independent MG. |
MDL (van Vliet, Maffett, Adler, Holt) | 1995–1998 | Chime | proprietary C++; free browser plugin for Mac (OS9) and PCs |
MolSoft | 1997–present | ICM-Browser | proprietary; free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux. |
ChemAxon | 1998- | MarvinSketch & MarvinView. MarvinSpace (2005) | proprietary Java applet or stand-alone application. |