rickc@agora.UUCP (Rick Coates) (01/02/89)
From article <5069@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>, by amlovell@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Anthony M Lovell): >> >> I will soon send him a program to calculate the position of the planets - >> does that count as a non-utility? > > OK, but only if you avoid the annoying hallmarks of the DOS time and > date commands: ie: don't have it pause for input after printing the > plantary coordinates, asking "Enter new Coordinates:". > Hmmm, maybe I should wait, and see if other people would use it. I'm afraid I don't understand this comment at all. Right now, the command 'planet' is completely command line driven (except for environment variables for latitude, longitude, height (for parallax correction) and time zone). You can specify what planet you want; over-ride system time and date; specify latitude, longitude, height; ask for rising and setting times and azimuths, and a more verbose mode by command line options. The output is fairly verbose, giving the corrected RA and declination, distance, angular size, phase, and optional rise/set information. The information should be good for 'about ten arc-seconds': corrections are made for aberration, nutation, and parallax (the last is probably superfluous). The algorithms are from Peter Duffett-Smith's _Astronomy_With_Your_Personal_Computer_ - in C, though, not BASIC. I will be doing a similar command for the Moon and (probably) the Sun. Rick Coates tektronix!reed!percival!agora!rickc OR tektronix!sequent!islabs!ateq!rick Output from planet -l -p Jupiter -v (verbose mode; give location information; planet Jupiter): (the x is the MS-DOS character for 'degrees'): (note the year is 1988 - #!%$&# PC can't handle year changes, and I haven't changed mine yet!) ========== Planet: Jupiter: 122x 40' 33.0" West Longitude 45x 27' 30.0" North Latitude elevation: 183 meters date: 1988-01-01 time: 23:54:15 UT Geocentric equatorial postion: ra: 1:16:53.3 dec: 6x 44' 30.3" Geocentric hour-angle: hrang: 21:10:5.1 Topocentric equatorial postion: ra: 1:16:53.3 dec: 6x 44' 31.7" Topocentric hour-angle: hrang: 21:10:5.1 phase: 0.99 distance: 4.70 AU angular size: 41.830 arc-seconds ==EOF=====
bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) (01/04/89)
I have sent the moderator an RPN-calculator program, which will hopefully show up in a couple of weeks. I don't think it's a utility, although I do think it's useful. It doesn't pause for input after showing the answer, and ask "Enter new numbers:" -- in the manner of an RPN calculator, you have to key in the number and THEN Enter :-) Along those lines -- rickc@agora.UUCP (Rick Coates) writes: >amlovell@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Anthony M Lovell): >>> >>> I will soon send him a program to calculate the position of the planets - >>> does that count as a non-utility? >> >> OK, but only if you avoid the annoying hallmarks of the DOS time and >> date commands: ie: don't have it pause for input after printing the >> plantary coordinates, asking "Enter new Coordinates:". >> > >Hmmm, maybe I should wait, and see if other people would use it. I'm >afraid I don't understand this comment at all. Right now, the command 'planet' I read it as a joke. Consider the MSDOS "DATE" command, which Microsoft and IBM probably think of as a "utility" (rather than one more piece of incriminating evidence). If the 'planet' program also wanted one to change every answer it generated, it would meet the criterion for a "utility". How you would actually reset the hardware in this case is an interesting programming issue :-) >I will be doing a similar command for the Moon and (probably) the Sun. Please don't write any "When will the Sun go nova?" utilities. :-) :-) :-) Barring that, I look forward to 'em. >(note the year is 1988 - #!%$&# PC can't handle year changes, and I haven't >changed mine yet!) Huhhhh??????????? Mine caught the new year 3 hours before I did.
dmt@mtunb.ATT.COM (Dave Tutelman) (01/04/89)
In article <16129@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (RAMontante) writes: >rickc@agora.UUCP (Rick Coates) writes: > >>(note the year is 1988 - #!%$&# PC can't handle year changes, and I haven't >>changed mine yet!) > >Huhhhh??????????? Mine caught the new year 3 hours before I did. 'Fraid mine didn't. I noticed it never caught the new year when "make" started working funny (specifically, not recompiling new stuff). Interestingly, my machine at work caught the new year just fine. >Consider the MSDOS "DATE" command, which >Microsoft and IBM probably think of as a "utility" (rather than one >more piece of incriminating evidence). [ Prompt for "New Date" indicates > "utility" ] Maybe now we know WHY Microsoft & IBM included the prompt :-( +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Dave Tutelman | | Physical - AT&T Bell Labs - Lincroft, NJ | | Logical - ...att!mtunb!dmt | | Audible - (201) 576 2442 | +---------------------------------------------------------------+