| Product Name: |
Meta-Synthesis |
| Level: |
First Year Tertiary / Second Year Tertiary |
| Platform: |
Macintosh® |
| Possible Use: |
This product is suitable for First Year Tertiary / Second Year Tertiary courses for use by students without supervision. |
| Price: |
US $45 |
| Review: |
The Meta-Synthesis program occupies 62 MB of hard-disk space and requires a recommended 6 MB of RAM; 1 MB of cache is recommended. It is currently available for Macintosh platforms. Only the demonstration version was tested: the full version is unlocked by special codes provided on payment of the US $45 RRP. Meta-Synthesis has large databases of reagents and reaction types, searchable by reaction type, reagent, or generic reagent type. The information is very comprehenisve: for example, bimolecular nucleophilic substitution (SN2) reactions are subdivided into whether the reagents are charged or neutral (eg
In gold type II, neutral + neutral: (CH3)3N + CH3I --> (CH3)4N+ + I-). Note that Rob Capon's soon-to-be-released ChARMs CD-ROM has detailed ("curly arrow") mechanistic schemes for each of over 280 reactions (in colour) whereas Meta-Synthesis has more reactions and reaction types but fewer mechanistic schemes (all in black and white). Further, ChARMs is intended more for use by lecturers in a class, whereas Meta-SynthesisÅ is well-suited for students in a CAL or self-paced-revision environment.
Meta-SynthesisÅ can predict the outcome of reactions involving a single double bond or at single sp3 carbon centre (with various substituents and reagents). The spontaneity of the reaction and final equilibrium are estimated from bond-additivity properties. Other useful features include pH calculations for common organic acids, and unit conversions. The Meta-Synthesis CD-ROM also has three other offerings: MoleCalc (US $15 RRP), Periodic (US $15 RRP), and six draft chapters of a book: Modern Lewis Theory: A Meta-Synthesis (MS Word 5.1 format) which are not reviewed here. This is the first release (version 1.0) of a very useful package. No doubt the authors will fix some annoying features: some very small fonts, the lack of detailed, and a few errors (eg. the structure of the acetylacetone anion is wrongly described as "linear" rather than "planar") when releasing the client-server "Research Group Editions", and Windows 95/NT versions. |
|
Kieran F. Lim, Deakin University, lim@deakin.edu.au |
| |
| Supplier: |
The Digital Chemistry Company, PO Box 332M, Manunda, Cairns 4870, Queensland |
|
digichem@internetnorth.com.au |
|
http://www.meta-synthesis.com/ |
|
fax: +61 70 322 756 |
| Date Record Last Modified: |
6/1/97 |
