Andrew Bevan wrote:When I tried to reinstall my astrological software the installation code was out of date. (Astrolcalc, where are you?)
Hi Andrew,
Well we have been in contact since so it's not solely for you I write this, but I found my way to Skyscript just the other day and thought it would be a good idea to leave a reply to this topic and publicly ?clearing up? some of the ??? surrounding Astrocalc.
For anyone who doesn't know, I took over Astrocalc some years ago from Colin Miles who originally started it back in 1982 together with Terry Dwyer. Now I don't want to say too much here as parts of it really are of a personal nature, but here is the short story, for anyone who wonders.
I started as a Swedish Astrocalc agent back when it still was a Dos program and my attempt to produce a Swedish translation sort of lead me in on programming because at that time it required some code changes due to country code pages etc. I never succeeded at that time, but I guess it must have been my native Uranus on Mc, once presented with programming I couldn't let go of it!
At the time Astrocalc, together with some other peripheral programs were all written in Quick Basic and it later got rewritten for Windows 3 using Visual Basic 3 (VB3) and I also managed to complete my Swedish translation with version 3.0 of the main Astrocalc program. So far so good and the year is now 1995/96, Microsoft had replaced the VB3 programming environment with VB4, and that with VB5 and finally VB6 was released. I tried to influence Mr. Miles that it was time for "progress" and move Astrocalc to VB6 and prepare for the future to come, Internet etc. etc. but it never happened and Astrocalc 3.5, 5.0, 5.5 and finally 5.6 (2002) was released, still produced in VB3. Meanwhile I didn?t find it worthwhile to learn using a tool that already had been abandoned by Microsoft.
It was never said out laud during any of the many "energetic" discussions we had at the time, but I believe he was already looking forward to retirement and VB3 served his means, so why bother by learning something new and maybe break things. A pretty fair assessment I guess after all the years he invested into Astrocalc and its users.
What I have said above is mainly to give some background, as Mr. Miles later asked me if I wanted to take over the running of Astrocalc as he planned for his retirement, and I accepted his offer. What then happened is a rather complicated story that in the end basically became a heavy load on my shoulders and as a result my body developed a severe illness. Pair that with a major computer crash and a broken ankle (2nd time) on my 50th birthday and you has it all in a nutshell! (Almost) Needless to say, I wasn't the very best in representing Astrocalc during this time, and I am not seeking to excuse myself in any way, sometimes thinks have to crack simply for the better of worse. The only thing I like to say is that there were several times it appeared very tempting to just drop it all and I was actually encouraged by people close by to do so, but I didn?t.
Today my body has healed, more or less, even if I still get some alternative treatment but it's mostly because I don't believe in ageing and I want to get back at my top again. Regarding the Astrocalc programs (there are several) I never really stopped working on them, even if there were times when I weren't capable of much. The 4 most requested programs, Astrocalc, Astrogeography, Starword and Transits Forecaster have been released in versions to run on Windows XP, Vista and 7, they are all actively maintained and supported.
As for other Astrocalc programs, and it still apply for some parts of the above programs, what many people aren't aware of (and I believe it's not just with Astrocalc) is that they origin from a time beyond the early stages of Windows (3.0) and so does the code and the coding technique used at this time, which simply was forced on by the limitations computers and tools presented then. There is also a saying, which bear a heavy dignity in software circles, "if it isn?t broke, don't fix it!" which if taken too seriously can lead to situations presenting them self as very difficult to progress forward from, the ?time leap? simply gets too huge. As I took over the Astrocalc programs and looked deeper under the hood I found this was very much the case and in bringing it up to standards of today I have so far rewritten over 35 000 lines of code, but there are still more to go.
So to sum up this somewhat spontaneous "news announcement" about Astrocalc, basically to answer the question above "Astrocalc where are you?", Astrocalc has "resurrected" (although it was never really dead) and is actively developed today and works on both 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows. The "other" smaller and less requested programs are also under rewrite but present some challenges as mentioned above and as we lack Microsoft like recourses it will still take some time.
You will find us as always on our website (I don't know if it's ok to give it here as it may be considered as advertising, but it shouldn't be so hard to find anyhow) and the best way is to use our Contact form there, whether if you like to ask for support or just have a question. The site may look a bit dead as it hasn't been updated for some time but there hasn?t been much to say, really. Also, I am working on a completely new site to address some shortcomings the current one have. I am not as good in web programming as with ordinary programming though but hopefully it will be ready before the summer put us all at ease.
I will surely also hang around here I guess, but more as "myself", as I found some really good discussions going on and some that haven't even started yet. I have been away from practicing astrology for some time as I sort of lost the inspiration but that has changed lately so even if a bit rusty I intend to inject myself into this community as a humble student and equal as it fits.
And as you been such a hero or heroine to read all the way down here I will finally reward you with a direct answer to the other questions about the "out of date installation code" above. This was an invention of Mr. Miles and was the first thing I took out of the Astrocalc code. The system was not well thought through and it was just an annoyance to most users having a date cap on the installation and even more so if you want or need to reinstall your software. Astrocalc today have a simple license system that is built on trust and if you break it, that will mostly become an embarrassment of yourself.
Thanks you for reading this far,
Joakim Schramm
Owner and main developer
Astrocalc Software
