Getting & Installing RasMol

This page provides local copies of the RasMol program. The original source of RasMol is via ftp from the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Download the RasMol 2.6 Beta-2a Program for which extensive documentation is available here.

 

	Download RasWin for PC/Windows
	Download RasMac for MacIntosh/PPC
	Download RasMol for unix/X-windows
	Download RasMol for VAX/VMS
	Download RasMol for NextStep
	Download RasMol for Acorn RISC OS
	Berkeley-enhanced RasMol-2.6-ucb-beta for Windows/Mac/unix can load up to 5 molecules at once and move them independently! Provided by the RasMol enhancement project at the MultiCHEM Facility at the University of California, Berkeley. Caution: UCB-RasMol does not run most RasMol scripts (at least on Windows, due to a bug) and may not yet support stereo. Get 'plain' RasMol above for scripts or stereo.
	The RasMol Reference Manual (Manual de Referencia de RasMol)
	Configuring Netscape to use RasMol as a viewer/helper application.
	Version chronology of RasMol, problems re: Stereo
	Source code for RasMol, RasWin, RasMac

In case you have problems downloading files with your web browser, all files on our web site in microbio/rasmol/distrib are also available by anonymous ftp from marlin.bio.umass.edu in /pub/shareware/rasmol/distrib.

Download the RasMol 2.7 Program

RasMol 2.7, spearheaded by Herbert Bernstein, was released in 1999. Bernstein's site contains

 

To the best of our knowledge, the only version of Roger Sayle's original RasMol Reference Manual which is reasonably up to date with RasMol version 2.6 beta 2 is the hypertext form of the Reference Manual available from our site. It has the large advantage that you can search it with the Find capability of your web browser, because it is all in one file. The disadvantage is that the file is somewhat large and slow to load.

Another advantage of the all-in-one-file version linked above is that it can be printed with your web browser, should you wish a paper copy.

If you prefer the faster loading of smaller files, section by section, (thereby sacrificing the web-browser find capability for the entire document, and the ability to print the entire document), see the frames version of the 2.6 beta 2 reference manual provided by Will McClure, Carnegie-Mellon U. This is also available without frames.

Here is an enhanced version of the RasMol Quick Reference Card (originally by Roger Sayle, enhanced by Duane Sears, UCSB). This card is also available in Adobe Acrobat format from Will McClure.

The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) provides supplemental information. If you have specific questions be sure to check RasMol's built-in help, both from the Help menu, and from the command-line (help command in the command-line window). (Note that RasMol's built-in help is up to date only with version 2.5.) If your questions remain unanswered, search past messages on the history of the RasMol email discussion, and if you still can't find the answer, subscribe to the email discussion and ask by email. Tutorials on how to use RasMol and guides to creating "movie" scripts for RasMol and Chime are also available.

Version chronology of RasMol since November 1994:

	2.7 April, 1999. Changes documented at the Bernstein RasMol 2.7 site.
	2.6 beta-2a (bug fixes): Macintosh: September 25, 1996 Windows 95/NT or 3.1 w/ >=386+Win32S/Ole (32 bit): November 20, 1996 Windows w/o floating point hardware (16 bit SX): 1st November 20, 1996 Windows 16 bit with floating point hardware: 1st September 4, 1996; bugs fixed November 20, 1996
	2.6 beta-2 (stereo): April 18, 1996 (Windows, unix), June 6, 1996 (Macintosh)
	2.6 beta-1 (scripts): September 12, 1995
	2.5: November 1994

See the Reference Manual for details of changes in each version.

There are three versions of RasWin for Windows 3.1x.

	16-bit RasWin for computers without floating point hardware (first available November 20, 1996). This is what you need for an 80286 or any SX computer (such as a 386SX) which lacks a floating point math coprocessor (lacks 80287 or 80387). If you try to run one of the versions below and you get a floating point error message, try this version. It will be very slow.
	16-bit RasWin for computers with floating point hardware (made available with stereo September 4, 1996, some bugs fixed November 20, 1996). This is 3- to 4-fold slower than 32-bit RasWin on computers which can run both versions.
	In order to run 32-bit RasWin (some bugs were fixed November 20, 1996) under Windows 3.1x, you must have (i) an 80386 or better CPU, (ii) floating point hardware (this is built into 80486DX and Pentiums) and (iii) a free accessory provided by MicroSoft called Win32S/Ole installed with your Windows 3.1x. To get it, download file PW1118.EXE. You will obtain a file which is a bit over 2 megabytes in size. Under DOS, put this file in a temporary DOS directory (for example, C:\INSTALL) and run it. It will create INSTALL.BAT; run this. Then run Windows, File, Run, and select C:\INSTALL\DISK1\SETUP.EXE. When you have finished, you can delete all contents of C:\INSTALL (all files in all subdirectories under it). For more detailed and technical installation instructions, consult Microsoft's documentation.

(If for any reason you want them, the following obsolete versions are still here: 32-bit RasWin 2.6-beta-2, 32-bit RasWin 2.6-beta-1, 16-bit RasWin 2.6-beta-2, 16-bit RasWin 2.6-beta-1.)

Installation. RasWin (either 16- or 32-bit) is installed as follows under Windows 3.1x. Create a new directory (for example, C:\RASWIN) and put the file you downloaded (RASWINSX.EXE, RW16B2A.EXE, or RW32B2A.EXE) there along with the two essential help files rasmol.hlp and raswin.hlp. (Get rashelp.exe, run it under DOS in your raswin directory, and it will self-unpack into these two files. These on-line help files are only up to date with version 2.5.)

Now, in Windows, select File, New (Program Item), Browse, and select C:\RASWIN\RASWIN.EXE (or RASWIN32.EXE), OK. In the Description field, put RasWin followed by the version you are installing (for example RasWin32 2.6 Beta2). In the Working Directory field, put C:\RASWIN or wherever you plan to keep your scripts and PDB (atomic coordinate) data files.

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Sources are:

	HENSA in the UK
	U Kaiserlautern DE
	U Stuttgart DE

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