SPECTRE's chief purpose is the manipulation of single-order spectra, and it performs many of the tasks contained in such IRAF routines as "splot" and "rv". It is not meant to replace the much more general capabilities of IRAF, but does some functions in a manner that some might find useful. A brief list of SPECTRE tasks are: spectrum smoothing; equivalent width calculation; continuum rectification; noise spike excision; and spectrum comparison. SPECTRE was written to manipulate coude spectra, and thus is probably most useful for working on high dispersion spectra. Echelle spectra can be gathered from various observatories, reduced to singly-dimensioned spectra using IRAF, then written out as FITS files, thus becoming accessible to SPECTRE. Three different spectra may be manipulated and displayed simultaneously. SPECTRE, written in standard FORTRAN77, can be used only with the SM graphics package.

MOOG performs a variety of LTE line analysis and spectrum synthesis tasks. The typical use of MOOG is to assist in the determination of the chemical composition of a star. The basic equations of LTE stellar line analysis are followed. The coding is in various subroutines that are called from a few driver routines; these routines are written in standard FORTRAN. The standard MOOG version has been developed on unix, linux and macintosh computers.

One of the chief assets of MOOG is its ability to do on-line graphics. The plotting commands are given within the FORTRAN code. MOOG uses the graphics package SM, chosen for its ease of implementation in FORTRAN codes. Plotting calls are concentrated in just a few routines, and it should be possible for users of other graphics packages to substitute other appropriate FORTRAN commands.