NTLK Re: Question for UK or chemist Newton users

From: Paul G. Grothaus (pgrothaus@hibiotech.com)
Date: Fri Apr 28 2000 - 17:12:53 CDT


Mark Rollins wrote:
>
> It's not Honolulu, but...
>
> http://www.savagesnow.com/hawaii.html
>
>
> I"d be interested in the chemical editor also. Have you looked at VEA?
> It's an object-oriented MP2000/2100 drawing package, and you can create
> libraries of shapes. It's creator/developer is gone, but it and a
> "crack" called "veacrack.pkg" on the Hotline Newton Intelligence (NI)
> server (ni.syr.edu).
>
Thanks Mark, yea we do get enough snow to ski here on both Mauna Kea and
Mauna Loa (Big Island) and occasional flurries on Haleakala (Maui). When my
daughter was little, we once had a snowball fight on Mauna Kea and then went
to the beach about an hour later! Ah, Paradise!!

As for the chemical editor, I wish there was a way to find out what Dr.
Harrison at Oxford has actually done. As I said earlier, two emails to him
went unanswered. I tried VEA but found it too inflexible for drawing
chemical structures, especially the addition of atom labels or any unusual
ring structures. Plus, I downloaded veacrack.pkg but the serial number it
contains does not work with Vea 1.4.4. Is there a different version that it
does work with?

Actually, I wish I were a good enough programmer to take advantage of the
Newton's shape recognition algorithms. I would love to add a "chemical"
recognizer to the "text", "ink text", "shapes", and "sketches" modes of the
notepad. It would be great to draw a six membered ring, have it
automatically cleaned up, click on an atom to select it, write the atomic
symbol, and have it automatically incorporated into the ring. In other
words, rather than selecting a bond, ring, etc. from a menu like in VEA, you
would draw a structure just like you do with a pen and paper. I've tried to
do this in the existing notepad, but rectangles and squares are the highest
shapes recognized and there is no easy way to add atom labels.

Ideally, such a chemical editor would store the structure as a standard
connection file (e.g. MOL format) which could be uploaded to a PC and
imported into ChemDraw, IsisDraw or another standard editor. Then again, I
believe I'll see that snow in Honolulu before I ever see my desired chemical
editor on the Newton. One can only dream what other useful programs may have
been available if Apple had only waited another year to pull the plug!

Aloha,
Paul G. Grothaus, PH.D.
Hawaii Biotechnology Group, Inc.
Aiea, HI

******************************************
This NewtonTalk Message brought to you by:

EVOTE.COM, the ESPN of Politics on the
Internet. Visit EVOTE.COM for all the latest
news on Campaign 2000!

Visit http://www.evote.com today!

******************************************

Need Subscribe/Unsubscribe Info?
visit http://www.planetnewton.com

******************************************



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 01 2000 - 00:00:07 CDT