molecular modelling with SGI Re: (none)

[Una Smith]

Keith Steward asks:

>Our department has access to a couple of Silicon Graphics
>workstations for use in molecular biology.  Can anyone tell me what
>molecular modelling and sequence analysis software is available for
>these beautiful machines.  

Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) puts out a free catalog of third-party 
software available for their workstations.  Nothing in the catalog 
is cheap.  For freeware or shareware, I suggest you contact the 
nearest computer graphics lab (usually found in CS departments) and 
aask them to keep an eyeout when they browse through archives, etc.

In any case, the SGI catalog, "Geometry Partners Directory," of nearly 
two years ago lists 16 molecular modelling software packages in its 
table of contents:

        Amber          NIEHS
        CHARMm         Polygen, Corp.
        CHIRON         University of Montreal
        Discover       Biosym Technologies, Inc.
        GAUSSIAN 85    University of Illinois
        GEMM           National Institues of Health
        GRINCH         BioCryst Ltd.
        Insight        Biosym Technologies, Inc.
        MENDYL         Tripos Associates, Inc.
        MIDAS          UCSF 
        MMS            UCSD
        MOLCAL         Technische Hochschule Darmstadt
        QUANTA         Polygen, Corp.
        RIBBONS        BioCryst, Ltd.
        SYBYL          Tripos Associates, Inc.
        TURBOMOLE      University of Karlsruhe

Punctuation is as in the catalog.

By now there are sure to be more products.  Please note that only
molecular modelling packages are listed, since this is a directory of
"Geometry Partners,"  i.e., extremely high-end graphics software.
Because sequence analyses are not inherently visual tasks (yet), they
are naturally not listed here.  SGI is sure to have a similar directory
of non-graphics packages for its powerful server stations;  contact your
local sales representative for details.    

I'd like to put in a plug for Silicon Graphics.  I have one of their
newest line of computers, and it is incredibly fast.  SGI has very good
educational discounts too, so good that had we bought a DEC MicroVax
instead, we would have gotten less than one fifth (!) the power for the
same money.  Even if you don't need the scorchingly fast graphics
hardware, if you're looking at high-end workstations, you should be
looking at SGI. 

Enjoy!