The development of multiconfiguration computer packages for atomic structure calculations is reviewed with special attention to the work of Charlotte Froese Fischer. The underlying theory is described along with methodologies to choose basis expansions of configuration state functions. Calculations of energies and transitions rates are presented and the accuracy of the results is assessed. Limitations of multiconfiguration methods are discussed and it is shown how these limitations can be circumvented by a division of the original large-scale computational problem into a number of smaller problems. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC. ; SCOPUS: cp.p ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published