June 1986 brought together some of the world's leaders in computer enhanced analytical spectroscopy at Snowbird, Utah, for what the attendees decided to call "The First Hidden Peak Symposium." With the remarkable advances in both computer hardware and software, it is interesting to observe that, while many computational aspects of spectroscopic analysis have become routine, some of the more fundamental problems remain unsolved. The group that assembled included many of those who started trying to interpret chemical spectroscopy when computers were ponderous, slow, and not very accessible, as...