It was originally developed by Roger Sayle in the early 1990s.[1]
Historically, it was an important tool for molecular biologists since the extremely optimized program allowed the software to run on (then) modestly powerful personal computers. Before RasMol, visualization software ran on graphics workstations that, due to their cost, were less accessible to scholars. RasMol continues to be important for research in structural biology, and has become important in education.
RasMol has a complex licensing version history. Starting with the version 2.7 series,[2] RasMol source code is dual-licensed under a GNU General Public License (GPL), or custom license RASLIC.[3] Starting with version 2.7.5, a GPL is the only license valid for binary distributions.
RasMol includes a scripting language, to perform many functions such as selecting certain protein chains, changing colors, etc. Jmol and Sirius software have incorporated this language into their commands.
^Roger Sayle and E. James Milner-White. "RasMol: Biomolecular graphics for all", Trends in Biochemical Sciences (TIBS), September 1995, Vol. 20, No. 9, p. 374
^Herbert J. Bernstein, "Recent changes to RasMol, recombining the variants, Trends in Biochemical Sciences (TIBS), September 2000, Vol. 25, No. 9, pp. 453-455