Sheffield Chemputer

The Sheffield ChemPuter is a reincarnation (in progress) of a set of simple interactive calculators for chemistry launched in 1993. Use it to calculate or determine:

• Isotope Patterns from your choice of formula
• Element percentages from your choice of formula
• Reaction yield from your reaction
• Classification of an atom in your choice of compound (valence)
  • Valence number (VN)
  • Coordination number (CN)
  • Oxidation number (ON)
  • MLXZ classification
  • MLXZ equivalent neutral class (ENC) classification
• VSEPR shape of simple molecules

History of The Sheffield Chemputer

The Sheffield ChemPuter was first launched in 1993 as an exercise to see if the then new-fangled WWW was in any way useful for chemistry (H.S. Rzepa, B.J. Whitaker, and M.J. Winter, "Chemical applications of the World-Wide-Web system", J. Chem. Soc., Chem. Commun., 1994, 1907-1910, https://doi.org/10.1039/C39940001907).

Originally it was a service using the MacHTTP WWW server running on a desktop Macintosh SE30. The server used the much lamented HyperCard to execute the calculation; communication between the server software and HyperCard was achieved with AppleScript. A later version was based upon WebStar/AppleEvents/SuperCard.

This current version is something of a much-delayed resurrection of The Chemputer created during Covid-19 restrictions and is not yet finished. It does its calculations using server-side PHP but the code is still based upon my early HyperTalk algorithms.