RasMol 2.3
              Molecular Graphics Visualisation tool.

                           Roger Sayle 
                  BioMolecular Structures Group
                   Glaxo Research & Development
                     Greenford, Middlesex, UK.
                          February 1994


    RasMol is an X Window System tool intended for the visualisation of 
proteins and nucleic acids. It reads Brookhaven Protein Databank (PDB) 
files and interactively renders them in a variety of formats on either an 
8bit or 24/32bit colour display. The complete source code and user 
documentation for the UNIX/X11, IBM PC/MSWindows and the VMS/DecWindows
versions may be obtained by anonymous ftp from ftp.dcs.ed.ac.uk 
[129.215.160.5] in the directory /pub/rasmol. All the source code is
contained in the file RasMol2.tar.Z and the MS Windows source code and
executable in the file raswin.zip. Both of these files include on-line 
help, hypertext documentation and the previous (dated) version of the 
PostScript user reference manual.

    Please remember to use "binary" mode when transferring files between
UNIX and MSDOS systems. Check that the file size is the same before and
after transfer. The MSWindows error "No Memory for Application" is
symptomatic of transfering "raswin.exe" in ASCII mode (corrupting it).

    The program is intended for teaching and generating publication 
quality images. The program has both a menu system and a full featured
command line interface. Different parts and representations of the 
molecule may be coloured or displayed in a number of formats independently.
Currently supported formats include wireframe, ball and stick, backbone,
space filling spheres and solid or strands ribbon models. The space filling 
spheres may even be shadowed. The molecule may be manipulated using the
mouse, the scroll bars, the interactive command line or from a dials box 
(if one is attached). The resulting image may be saved at any point in 
PostScript, GIF, PPM, Sun rasterfile or Microsoft BMP formats.  For more 
details see the RasMol user reference. On a SparcStation, it can shadow 
a 10,000 atom spacefilling protein in less than 10 seconds.

    The current version of the program has been tested on sun3, sun4, 
sun386i, SGI, DEC & E&S mips based machines, DEC Alpha (OSF/1 and OpenVMS),
VAX VMS (under Dec Windows), IBM RS/6000, hp9000, sequent compiled under 
both gcc and (typically) the native compiler. The version for Microsoft 
Windows requires version 7 of the Microsoft Optimizing C Compiler or
Visual C++ Compiler and the Microsoft Software Development Kit (SDK). 

    The source code is public domain and freely distributable provided that
the original author is suitably acknowledged. Any comments, suggestions or 
questions about the package may be directed to either "rasmol@dcs.ed.ac.uk"
or "rasmol@ggr.co.uk".

    Thank you for acquiring a copy of the RasMol distribution. I hope you
enjoy it! If you like the program and decide to use it, *Please* send me a
short email message to that effect, together with any comments or suggestions
for improving the program. If you appreciate the large amount of work that 
has gone into creating RasMol, a small donation of $40 US or #25 GBP to the 
address below would be welcome.

Contact Address:
                Roger Sayle,
                Department of Computer Science
                University of Edinburgh
                The King's Buildings,
                Mayfield Road,
                Edinburgh  EH9 3JZ
		    SCOTLAND

                Tel: (+44) 081 966 3567
                     (+44) 031 650 5163

		EMail: ros@dcs.ed.ac.uk