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Volume 1B Number 1

In This Issue

KC? Discoverer: Exploring the Properties of the Chemical Elements
 
Aw Feng, John W. Moore, William Harwood, and Robert Gayhart


About This Issue

John W. Moore
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1396


Note:
This issue is out of print. See Periodic Table Live!, SP 17.


The single program in this issue, KC? Discoverer, represents a new approach to the problem of dealing with descriptive chemistry. Instead of drill or rote memorization of facts, the program provides several means by which students (or faculty) can explore and discover information about the elements. Its user interface consists of menus from which selections can be made, thus encouraging exploration of the database and making it possible to learn to use the program without much external help. It has been used by several persons to support sophomore inorganic courses as well as general chemistry, and suggestions from these persons have been incorporated into the version published here. The accompanying workbook, written by William Harwood, Elizabeth A. Moore, John W. Moore, and Tamar Y. Susskind, includes many student exercises that were suggested by and/or developed by reviewers of the program.

Hardware and Software Requirements

KC? Discoverer runs under MS-DOS and is supplied on two 5.25-in. disks. It makes effective use of either a floppy-disk system or a hard disk system.

The floppy-disk version requires two 5.25-in. drives (or one 3.5-in. drive--in this case you will have to copy both 5.25-in. disks to a single 3.5-in. disk). At least 320K RAM and DOS version 3.0 or higher are also required.

The hard-disk version requires a computer with one hard disk and one floppy drive (the latter only to load the program). At least 256K RAM and DOS version 2.1 or higher are also required.

For either version the computer must be equipped with a graphics adapter (CGA, EGA, or VGA), and it is desirable to have a printer that can print graphics screens from the PC using the PrtSc key. Since many aspects of the program are useful for lecture presentation, large monitors, overhead projection units, or color video projectors (1) may also be useful.

Literature Cited

  1. Susskind, T.Y. J. Chem. Educ.: Software, 1988, 1A(1), 16-24.
First Published: October 1988

Citation: Moore, J. W. About This Issue J. Chem. Educ. Software 1B1

Keywords:


Editorial Commentary
Evolution of the Computer Series
 
John W. Moore

Journal of Chemical Education: Software

 
J. J. Lagowski


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Created: November 8, 1996
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