Busting out of crystallography's Sisyphean prison: from pencil and paper to structure solving at the press of a button: past, present and future of crystallographic software development, maintenance and distribution

The history of crystallographic computing and use of crystallographic software is one which traces the escape from the drudgery of manual human calculations to a world where the user delegates most of the travail to electronic computers. This review traces the development of small-molecule single-crystal and powder diffraction hardware, starting with the use of Hollerith tabulators of the late 1930's through to today's use of high-performance personal computers. It also emphasizes that the main challenge for current and future crystallography computing is not that of hardware development, or even specific scientific challenges, but rather in maintaining a critical mass of human expertise with which these computational challenges can be undertaken.

Nexus, crystallographic computing all around the world

Crystallographic Nexus CD-ROMs, containing a range of free crystallographic software for single-crystal and powder diffraction available on the Internet, have been distributed free on request since 1996. The free CD is made in the form of a `virtual Internet' with the main intent of benefiting crystallographers with inadequate Internet access.