1. Make a new folder on the same drive where you have the COWAN folder containing the old package. Name this folder COWAN_NEW. If you don't have the old package installed, please first download it from here and install according to instructions at cowan.htm .
2. Copy all contents of the old package (the COWAN folder and all sub-folders) to this COWAN_NEW folder.
3. Download the new compiled executable files of the Cowan package from here and unpack them in the COWAN_NEW\CODE sub-folder.
NOTE: If necessary, you may download the latest publicly available original version of Salford Fortran 77 (personal edition for private use) from here . It includes the compiler and debugger. The user's guide is also available at this website.
4. Download the new Fortran source files of the Cowan package from here and unpack them in the COWAN_NEW\FOR sub-folder.
5. To run the new package, rename the old COWAN folder to COWAN_OLD and the COWAN_NEW folder to COWAN. Now you can run all programs (RCN, RCN2, RCG, RCE, and all utility codes) in the same way as you did with the old versions.
6. Follow the instructions in the old README file supplied with the Cowan package (should be in the COWAN_OLD folder) to create the new set of CFP deck files (binary files containing coefficients of fractional parentage). RCG will not work until you re-generate the CFP decks.
7. Enjoy!
1) The new executables compiled with Salford Fortran 77 can run on any version of Windows that has a 32-bit support (95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, etc.). The old files compiled with Lahey Fortran 77/32 cannot run under Windows XP or later versions.
2) RCN now accepts input of electronic shell specifications in either lower or upper case letters. The old version of rcn36k.exe required the shell specifications in the IN36 input file to be upper case. This was due to the evolution history of ISAN's versions of Cowan's codes. The original Cowan's codes accept the shell designations only in lower-case letters. One of the intermediate operating systems used in ISAN at some time accepted only upper-case letters, that's why this upper-case convention persisted in several versions of various codes. Now that these old operating systems are obsolete, there's no need to require upper-case letters in the input files. The same input files that are used in original Cowan's codes (see http://www.t4.lanl.gov/ and ftp://aphysics.lanl.gov/pub/cowan/) can be used for ISAN's versions, and vice versa.
3) RCN, RCN2, and RCG now accept up to 200 configurations IN EACH CONFIGURATION SET. It means there can be 400 interacting configurations in total! RCE cannot handle that many yet. It would be the next step if anybody expresses the need for it.
4) Several minor, yet nasty, bugs were fixed. In particular, the old RCG sometimes inserted unexpected empty lines in the middle of the parameters section in the OUTGINE file. This caused RCE to fail until the user removes the empty lines either manually or by means of an auxiliary code. Now this is fixed. Also, some more dimension checking is added.
5) Array dimensions are much larger in the new pre-compiled executables. It makes these executables much more general, i.e. they can work with much larger scope of tasks. Of course, it imposes some limitations on the hardware. The files were compiled on a computer with 512 Mb of RAM. If they don't work on your computer, you would have to decrease the array dimensions and recompile them. In this case you would need to download the Salford Fortran 77 compiler (see references above).
6) There is a minor modification of the output format of the OUTG11 file (the output file of RCG) in the case of computation of autoionization rates. Namely, the rates are output in scientific (exponential) notation in the units of 1/sec instead of the former fixed-width floating-point notation and the units of 10^13 1/sec. In addition, each line in the output file that contains the autoionization rates now has a recognizable pattern '**AA**' (for Aa-values) or '**GAA**' (for gAa-values). Thus, you can use grep or other simple text-extraction utility to extract all these lines from the output file.
7) The utility code CONV_OUT.exe is modified to accept twice as many calculated transitions as the old version could. There is a minor change in the format of the output transition list: a new column of the values of cancellation factor is added.
8) A bug in the utility code SUBST_11 is fixed. The old version did not work if the ING11 file contained the radial integrals for electric quadrupole transitions. The new version fixes the problem.
9) All questions and/or suggestions should be directed to Alexander.Kramida@nist.gov or kramida@yahoo.com .
Alexander Kramida,
National Institute of Standards and Technology,
Atomic Physics Division,
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8401,
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8401,
tel. (301) 975-8074 (office)