Dow Refines Structural Searching
Ascher Opler · Chemical & Engineering News · 1957
SOME four and one half years ago, T. R. Norton and I began developing a system for searching coded chemical compounds for desired structural features. We have already told the story of the successive stages and development of the system up to mid-1955 (C&EN, June 4, 1956, page 2812). We have also distributed quite a few copies of a manual for coding and a manual for programming. What I propose to do here is describe the many interesting developments that have taken place in the last two years and mention some new approaches to machine searching that we have explored and that we feel are significant. First, a few words about the computer we have selected. Our experience has shown that cost per search decreases rapidly with increasing size of the computer. Our whole development has been toward larger and faster machines. Today, we are basing our search work entirely on the IBM 704, a ...