GAMESS Documentation

The GAMESS documentation is lightly word-processed, so that it may be distributed in two formats. One of these is PDF, available below, which should be used for printing a hard copy. The PDF is formatted to be printed on both sides of the page, if possible, using American sized paper, but A4 is also OK. The second format is plain text (ASCII), which is included in the GAMESS source code distribution's tar file.

The ASCII version of the documentation is searchable online. You can easily configure the ~/gamess/tools/gmshelp script provided with the source code version to display the second chapter at your Unix prompt. For example, typing "gmshelp contrl" will display that particular input group's keywords.

The GAMESS documentation consists of 6 chapters, as follows. Users of the program will be interested in the first four chapters, whereas the final two chapters are for people who are installing the program, or possibly interested in programming new options. Click on each link to download a copy.

  1. Introduction, which includes a program summary and credits.
  2. Input Description, listing every possible input keyword.
  3. Test Examples, containing more than 30 complete input examples.
  4. Test Example Files, containing the input examples for tests.
  5. Further Information, giving notes on how to use the program, and literature citations.
  6. Programmer's Reference, with instructions on how to execute the program.
  7. Hardware Specifics, including compiler notes.