dryad2b - thank you for sharing that info. I’m saddened for his passing although I only met him thru a couple of PMs. He seemed a knowledgeable older chemist who could have shared some insights into practical synthetic and analytic techniques. Could open a new thread. IDK what is best.
kobin - yeah I understand what you are saying about older equipment and software, particularly these days when revenue models for everything is a recurring license with payment of some sort. As I look at learning some basic organic techniques I see it’s an art like many skills, not a cookbook. Qualitative / quantitative analysis is important with each step to isolate desired products, exclude side reaction products and unreacted products. Thus purification skills are yet another step in the process - distillation, recrystallization, extraction, chromatography.
Sorry for slow response to this. I’ll try and do better.
TY for you replies.