April 2, 1995 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Marcia Murakami (519)725-4040 Hypercube, Inc. Hypercube to Market SGI Version of HyperChem ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA - Hypercube, Inc. today announced that it has developed and will market, sell, and support a new *Silicon Graphics Version of HyperChem*. The new X-Windows/Motif/GL version of HyperChem, to be referred to as 'Release 4.5 for SGI', is being introduced and shown off at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Anaheim. It will ship to customers in 90-120 days. An earlier version of HyperChem, Release 2 for SGI, was previously marketed by Autodesk, Inc. through an exclusive agreement with Hypercube, Inc., but was removed from the market in 1993 in conjunction with Autodesk exiting the scientific software business. Hypercube's software is now marketed directly by Hypercube, Inc. and sold through a channel of distributors and dealers. "Many users were unhappy that the Autodesk SGI version was terminated leaving them with no upgrade path," said Dr. Neil S. Ostlund, President and CEO of Hypercube, Inc. "We are very pleased to be able to bring back the SGI version, which was a very well received product. SGI machines constitute an important platform for molecular modeling; we want to support that platform and continue doing so." HyperChem Release 4.5 for SGI will have all the features of Release 2 for SGI plus essentially all of the new functionality that has been added to HyperChem since its first introduction in 1992. These new features beyond Release 2 include vibrational analysis and IR spectroscopy, configuration interaction and UV Visible spectroscopy, ZINDO methods for transition metals, display of orbital energy diagrams, mixed molecular mechanics / quantum mechanics calculations, stereochemical constraints, ribbon display of macromolecules, restraining forces, and interactive setting of velocities for exploring chemical reactions. In addition, many improvements have been made to the basic functionality, such as to the model builder. Extensions have also been made to the basic functionality to include more inorganic-like systems and elements later in the periodic table. Finally, the SGI version includes all the ab initio methodology that Hypercube is introducing into its new Release 4.5 of HyperChem for Windows. "HyperChem now supports ab initio SCF geometries and MP2 energies," said Yufei Guo, the principal developer of the ab initio package, "This is the core functionality that 95% of our users want." Hypercube had earlier introduced a client-server version of HyperChem that supported machines from SGI as computational servers connected to a network of PCs, where the desktop PC provides interaction and visualization. That is, the "back ends" of HyperChem were available for SGI platforms while the "front end" ran on a PC. The new SGI version of HyperChem adds an SGI front end to the total network picture. The earlier back end servers still remain available but will be augmented by a new ab initio Unix back end, HyperGauss. The commercial price of a one-license Release 4.5 of HyperChem for SGI will be $2995 while the government and academic price will be $1495. Volume discounts and site-licenses are available. Background Hypercube is a privately held scientific software company incorporated in 1985 and headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Its principal product is HyperChem for Intel-based PCs running Microsoft Windows. Other products include ChemPlus, a set of extensions to HyperChem, and HyperNMR, a package that performs a priori quantum mechanical simulation of NMR spectra. A Windows NT version of HyperChem is also available for the Digital Equipment Corporation Alpha PC, as are client-server versions of HyperChem that use UNIX computational servers from Silicon Graphics, Digital Equipment Corporation, and IBM. HyperChem is a molecular modeling software product noted for its ease of use. It is a comprehensive desktop productivity tool for visualizing, analyzing and communicating information about molecular structures as well as for performing the calculations of computational chemistry. It is the most widely-used molecular modeling software for the Microsoft Windows environment of IBM-compatible PCs. - 30 - HyperChem is a trademark of Hypercube, Inc. All other trade and product names mentioned are the service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. ------------ Hypercube Inc, 7-419 Phillip St, Waterloo, Ont, Canada N2L 3X2 (519)725-4040 Info requests to: info@hyper.com Support questions to: support@hyper.com Email group: Send "subscribe hyperchem" to hyperchem-request@hyper.com WWW: http://www.hyper.com/ -----