http://depth-first.com/articles/tag/limit en-us 40 Walking the Web of Chemical Informatics <p><img src="http://depth-first.com/demo/20061102/levinthl.jpg" align="right"></img>Through <a href="http://www.dalkescientific.com/writings/PyCon2004.html">Andrew Dalke's blog</a>, I came across an <a href="http://www.umass.edu/molvis/francoeur/index.html">online museum</a> dedicated to early molecular graphics. One section is amazing. It describes the work of <a href="http://www.umass.edu/molvis/francoeur/levinthal/lev-index.html">Cyrus Levinthal</a>, who in the mid 1960's built the first interactive molecular graphics system. Users viewed 3-D molecular images on an oscilloscope screen (<a href="http://depth-first.com/articles/2006/09/07/rendering-molecules-with-svg-on-the-web">vector graphics</a>!), and manipulated them with a trackball-like device. The system, called "Kluge", handled both small molecules and proteins.</p> <p>The computer technology of 1964 could generously be described as feeble by today's standards. Yet Levinthal was able push it to the limit to build the ancestor of systems <a href="http://jmol.sourceforge.net/">still being developed and used</a>. It makes me wonder what fantastic things might result if someone today took the same approach.</p> Thu, 02 Nov 2006 14:29:00 +0000 urn:uuid:446ea874-da9c-4757-a012-df87f3eb76c7 Rich Apodaca http://depth-first.com/articles/2006/11/02/stone-knives-and-bear-skins Meta graphics levinthal limit dalke