Preface to AMPAC 7.0 Manual

Dear Colleagues,

This version of AMPAC™ has been a long time coming. It includes a number of new features and capabilities. Also, the 6.0 Manual Supplement has been included here along with components of what was formerly a separate GUI manual. We trust you will find this more useful and convenient. Note that there was no official 6.0 manual.

Many of the advances in the 7.0 version are the result of very deep and sometimes easily overlooked code modifications. In the case of the current version, important changes have been made in the SCF and geometry optimization convergence algorithms that have made AMPAC much faster and more robust. This is reflected in the retirement of several of our old optimizers and a more automated approach to solving convergence and optimization pitfalls.

The GUI has also had a significant face-lift. We have recoded much of this program for portability and consistency of code, application and appearance across Unix and PC platforms. It will now have a more natural look and feel, with many of the modern features you have been asking for. Please let us know what you think.

This version of AMPAC also highlights one of our new key alliances, that with the University of Minnesota to include several of the new AMSOL models especially developed in the context of AMPAC.

Since the release of our last version Michael J.S. Dewar died. We will all miss him and we trust he would have been pleased at where AMPAC is today. As always, it is our goal to provide you with the best tools for your research . Let us hear from you!

Many thanks,

Andrew J. Holder

President

October 21, 2002