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1989-09-12
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Geotime - The "Ultimate" (?) Amiga clock
Copyright 1988 by Mike Smithwick
Like many people, I was getting pretty board with the plethora of
rather dull little workbench clocks (mouse pointer clocks, Boing
clocks, etc), I decided to write Geotime.
Geotime actually consists of two separate programs, Geotime_m depicts
a earth map with day and nite sides shaded. You'll be able to observe
the earth's shadow scroll across the map in real-time based on the
system clock.
The other program, Geotime_g is a workbench clock, and shows the
earth as a globe with day and nite sides. Like the map, the shadows
will progress in real-time showing the current phase of the earth.
And now a word from our sponsor:
Geotime is freely distributable, as long as this notice stays intact.
However, this is, "Shareware" (oh no Mr. Bill, not shareware!). Wait!
Don't go!! I know that the shareware concept is much overused,
particularly since most shareware products aren't worth it. If you do
enjoy this program, I would enjoy, say, $17. This will ensure a free
upgrade which will not be freely distributable. Please feel free to
suggest further features for the next version. I expect to have
higher detailed maps, zoom in/out, time-zone boarders, etc.
Mail you generous cash contributions to :
Mike Smithwick
25215 La Loma Drive
Los Altos Hills, CA 94022
This of course assumes that there is enough interest to warrent
further time spent on this.
"And we thank you for your support".
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Geotime_m
Geotime_m will display a map of the earth showing the current day and
nite regions. The shadow will scroll across the map in real time.
This program was inspired by "Geochron", the beautiful, illuminated
large wall map that costs around $4 million bucks (actually, about 2
grand).
It is started in the traditional double-click icon method. For those
who despise workbench, it may be started up from CLI by typing
"geotime_m -f coast2.sm.bin".
City and country names are read from the file "gtnames.dat". Each
entry requires 3 lines in the following format :
name
lat long
time_zone
West longtitude is negative, East is positive. The time-zone is the
value the must be added to your time to equal Universal Time. Most
almanacs should have timezone entries for major cities.
Here's a sample entry :
.San Francisco
38 -122
7
.Seoul
37 127
-9
.London
51 0
-100
Time zones are floating point values since some zones are fractional
hours. (The timezones in the sample file may not be correct due to
the uncertainties of Daylight times around the world).
Each name will automatically be followed by a clock showing the time
in 24 hour mode. Using a time-zone value of "-100" (as in the London
entry) will prevent the clock from being displayed to avoid excess
screen clutter.
The period before the name is used to more clearly pinpoint the
location.
The star-like sprite shows the "sub-solar" point, the point on the
Earth directly under the sun.
There are a couple of options you may change by use of the Workbench
Icon "Tooltypes" facilities. These are used to pass startup
information on to a program. Click once on the icon, then select
"info" from the workbench menu. You will now see the "Info" window
displaying all sorts of curious attributes about it's associated
file. Near the bottom is the "TOOL TYPES" string gadget. Click on the
arrows, and you see 3 different startup options. "GLOBEDATA" tells
the program where to get it's map data file. For Geotime_m there is
currently only one file, "coast2.sm.bin", so you don't need to touch
this unless you move the datafile over into another directory. Next
is the "TIMEZONE" argument. This is the timezone for your location,
and is determined the same way as all other timezones. The program
uses this to convert the local time on your system's internal clock
to Universal time. It is currently set up for Pacific time. You may
also change the landmass colors using "LANDCOLOR". The following 3
numbers are the red, green and blue components. So if you wanted
magenta land you would type "LANDCOLOR=15,0,15", or all red, no
green, all blue. (The color values go frome 0 to 15). When done
modifying the tooltypes, click on save. You may want to open the info
window one more time to verify that your numbers were correctly
recorded, as I ran in to some problems in this regard.
Geotime_m requires the use of a special font, "flow_thin". In order
to install the font, open a cli window and type "execute
gt:font_install".
There are a couple of menu options that allow you to toggle on/off
the clocks, names, and a clock in the menubar.
---------------------------------------------------------------
geotime_g
Geotime_g will depict the earth as if you will an astronaut orbiting
about 300 zillion miles up. The earth's shadow will be correct for
the date and time, and will advance as time itself advances.
Start this up via the icon, or CLI as mentioned above using
"geotime_g -f coast2.bin". (Notice that different data files are used
for each program).
At startup you are in "orbit" mode, in which the viewpoint in effect
"orbits" around the planet. (otherwise it would be a really boring
display.)
Geotime will work in both interlace and non-interlaced modes.
Although it looks the niftiest in Hi-res interlace with dropshadow.
Since Geotime uses your own workbench colors you may have reset your
preference colors for what looks best on both Geotime and your
workbench. Colors are very important. The water should be dark-blue,
land masses brown/orange or green, sky-black. In order to see the
colors I used, I've included my own "system-configuration" file on
the disk which hold my preference data. You may want to substitute
this for your own in the df0:devs directory.
There is just one Tooltype entry for this one, and that is
"GLOBEDATA". As with the Geotime_m, there is currently only 1 file,
"coast2.bin".
If the globe is not circular, your monitor may need some adjustment.
It may take an update or two for any changes in the settings window
to take affect.
Geotime_g has several menu options. . .
System menu
In the systems menu, "settings" will allow you to set some basic
information needed. Timezone is the number of hours which you need to
add to your local time to arrive at Universal Coordinated Time (the
old "GMT"). +7 is good for the SF Bay Area.
View lat : sets the viewer latitude. Defaults to 0 degrees. (dd.mm
format) Setting this positive will put you above the equator when
looking at the globe.
View long : sets the viewer longtitude. Defaults to 0 degrees. This
advances 5 degrees each update while in orbit mode.
Lat : user's latitude. Put your home's latitude here for the
"location" highlight option.
Long : user's latitude. Put your home's longtitude here.
Save : This will save all of your settings to a file, "geotime.dat".
If you make a mistake, the screen will flash a bunch of times and you
won't be able to leave the requestor.
The latitudes go from -90 to +90 degrees. Longtitudes go from 180 W
to 0 to 180 E. So for instance, the longtitude for San Francisco,
122:27 degrees West, would be entered as "122.27 W".
Neat Stuff menu
Highlights : "Continents" will put an outline on the land masses.
"Location" will put a "*" at whatever location you
specify in the settings window.
Indicators : "Clock" will display the current date and time, while
"legend" shows how the sunny side is colored vs. the shaded side.
Mode : This lets you toggle between the orbit/hover rotational modes.
"Orbit", the default, presents the planet to you as if
you were orbiting around in a very fast spacecraft from West to East.
"Hover" puts you above a fixed point specified by the
view lat/view long entries in the settings window. Hover is a really
dull mode.
Shadow : "Shaded", the default, gives you a shadow tint, while
"black" will completely blacken the shadow to more closely mimic the
view from space.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Misc
The data used contains about 3000 points culled from a 6000 point
database. (I may release the larger one sometime, it doesn't look
that much better on the globe, but it is quite nice on the map).
---------------------------------------------------------------------
(Warning! Warning! The following is an unabashed commercial
announcement!)
If you do enjoy this program, you may want to take a look at
something else I've done. It's called "Galileo", and is an astronomy
simulation. It will display up to 9100 stars in a fashion more
realistic than any other micro-computer planetarium simulation.
Galileo has won an award in the May Consumer Electronics Show for the
most innovative Educational Program of the Year.
A recent review in Sky and Telescope magazine called Galileo
"powerful and visually stunning", and many users write in to me
saying things like "at last, a program that justifies my Amiga", or
"Wonderful!".
Galileo is not meant just for folks with a telescope, but for anyone
who has ever wondered about what's up in the night sky. (As a matter
of fact, only a handful of owners stated they had a telescope. But
those who do love the program).
So, when you're tired of exploring fictional universes, give the real
one a shot, I think you'll enjoy it.
(End of the unabashed commercial announcement!)