[phenixbb] Age Concern edition of the Computing Commission and Teaching Commission newsletter

[Ralf W. Grosse-Kunstleve]

Posted on behalf of Lachlan Cranswick:

The Computing Commission and Teaching Commission has produced a joint
November 2009 newsletter on the theme of "Age Concern", which deals with
issue concerning "the slow march towards retirement of the major
generation of crystallographic programmers", as further explained by
David Watkin within the newsletter.

 http://www.iucr.org/resources/commissions/crystallographic-computing/newsletters/10

or via

  http://www.iucr.org/resources/commissions/crystallographic-teaching/newsletters/3
 
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This issue's articles include :

- the latest background and information from the UK based EPSRC funded
Age Concern Project.

- history and science within the Caltech based CRYRM single crystal
suite; DIMS - Direct methods In Multidimensional Space software; Crunch
1.5 Direct Methods Software; the Glasgow based GX single crystal suite;
the Italian based CAOS structure refinement software; Ton Spek's Platon;
and a list of programs archived at Armel Le Bail's Crystallography
Source Code Museum.

- experience in conversion of large crystallographic Fortran-77 to C++;
as well as the place of the Quick and Dirty Crystallographic Computer
Program

- Historical group photographs from some of the Crystallographic
Computing and Teaching School of the 1970's. 

- Archived manuals and source code from the above mentioned software.

- Teaching material of Isabella L. Karle, as she presented at the 1978
Erice School on Direct Methods for Solving Crystal Structures

- A reprint of the The Analytical Theory of Point Systems (1923) by J.
D. Bernal (1901-1971)

Further Computing Commission newsletters are intended on theme of Age
Concern : capturing the history and the crystallographic science behind
past and present Small Molecule, Powder Diffraction, Protein and other
crystallographic software. Submissions on this topic are welcome and
encouraged.

  -  Lachlan Cranswick  ( lachlan.cranswick at nrc.gc.ca )