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Text File | 1999-06-14 | 27KB | 680 lines

Date1.6.note * * * Date is a Persian Solar (Hedgri -eh- Shamsi) Calendar utility. It's small in size, and doesn't require much storage space or take up a lot of memory for itself when running. This isn't something everyone would be after `internationally'. We only placed it in here with the hopes to get through to Amiga users in Iran through an AF CD or DD, and obtain what might be called `some valid publicity' to boast off our friends with here at home country ... A rather hard thing to admit, but we did it anyway !!! ¦ß^{ Satisfaction of fame appetites aside however, we also thought maybe there's someone out there -Iranian or not- looking for something like this - as we were in the need for it ourselves too ... As you'll see for yourself, Date1.6 is by no way perfect, but we'll be happy anyway if this trinket will be of any help to anyone who's been after such a thing ... * * * What does Date do ? This utility provides the Amiga Workbench (ROM1.3+) users with a little window on which to be found a Persian calendar to go along with the Christian or Georgian calendar already in use on Amiga computers' clocks. * * * How does it work ? Just activate Date1.6 either by double clicking on its icon, or via Shell. (The latter will be better, especially if done via the Startup-Sequence. More on this in the `Usage & installation' section below). Its window will appear at the top right hand side of the Workbench title bar. In case of Workbench1.3, Date1.6's Depth\Back-to-Front gadgets will be overlapping that of the Workbench's ... Date1.6 will be displaying the date from left to right (Western style) instead of the Iranian usual written form of right to left ... So the notation used in this utility to represent date will be : Example : Wed 08-02-78 (78 = 1378) to go with Wed 28-04-99 and not the way it is customary in Iran which is usually something like `Tuesday xx/xx/xx' using `slash' in place of `dash' by `officially traditional conventions', which implies : `day of the week's name' year/month/day's date digit Example : Wedensday (13)78/2/8 which exactly coincides with same week day 28-Apr-99 in the Western (Georgian or Christian) calendar. Note that the customary Persian convention for the year/month/day is in reverse order to that of the Christian's. The main reason behind this style of writing the date in Persian is because the language's manuscripts are written from right to left, not the reverse. So it's more convinient to do the date that way. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The use of slashes ONLY, is in itself probably something borrowed off Westerners or whatever, but since of late there is one of the `foreigner' Western notations or templates of date writing also kind of being formally accepted in Iran (perhaps due to ever increasingly uses of computers and `their' date stamping format), as well as the very fact that Date1.6 is going to be a computer utility, we at HR-IC decided to do it this way, ie to represent the date format with `-' in place of `/' ... It should be noted here, a day's name is never written in an abbreviated form normally in Iran (unlike in English for instance, where they use the three initial letters of a day regularly : Wed, Thu, Sat, etc) unless very occassionally, specifically in specialized organizations or private firms and by mutual agreements thereof made among the people concerned. Like treating most innovative novelties in Iran, it's kind of `unofficially official', or the reverse if you like it ! Strange country of the odds and the curious ... With Date1.6, we'll use the western names however, for there isn't a `full' Farsi Workbench environment available to everyone yet ... Of course there is a great Farsi-maker utility for Workbench available by a certain lad named Payman Jafari (we hope we're getting the gentleman's name in English right). We're using it ourselves too but we're not sure everyone's doing so ?!? Also, we didn't have access to Mr Jafari himself to make -probable- cooperative efforts on doing Date1.6 in Farsi. Payman Jafari's Farsi Workbench, does give day's name in Farsi in some cases - Shell and Digita's Organiser to name for two - but there isn't anything like Date1.6 in it - at least as far as we know ...?! We're herewith inviting him - and other people with similar potentials for programming on the Amiga alike - to make a good clock\calendar utility in Farsi, with more sophisticated features in it to go in with the Farsi Workbench ... Or maybe there's something like this or better out there already, but only we're not aware of its presence. In that case why not drop a few lines or make a phone call and let us know about it ?!? There is one more thing to point out in this respect : Payman's Farsi Wb is for ROM3.0+, while Date1.6 will work on ROM1.3 too. The latter case of using Date1.6 though will be a bit different from the former. More on this in the `Usage & installation' section below. * * * What more ? Date1.6, will also give the time. After running Date1.6, LClick on its window once to activate it (if it's not so already), then RClick on it once more again, and the time will be shown in the usual `standard' manner, ie, xx:xx:xx or Hrs:Mins:Secs (and NOT `Sex' ! å^þ) Date1.6 will be working out the years up to 1999 Hedgri Shamsi. This equals the year 2620 in the Christian calendar. Quite a long time for even an Amiga to be working, but at least it doesn't suffer from the Y2K problem ... Your Amiga doesn't suffer from the problem either, so Date1.6 can be enjoyed right about the turn of the century at least ...;-} - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Special Note : It's something obvious, but we should point out however that if your computer's system clock is working according to the `true' calendar and time of day, then Date1.6 will be working `correctly'. If one's Amiga isn't equipped with an RTC, then the in-built clock can be set `manually' and Date1.6 will follow it's signals reflecting the right time and date in its own window ... In the latter case though, please do be ware of the fact that Ami's in-built clock is a l`le bit slow (behind), and there's nothing Date1.6 can do about that ... * * * CAUTION ! if Date1.6 is active on the screen, when the time passes midnight, ie 00:00:00 hours, `new' date won't be displayed in Date's window untill it's RClicked upon once to show the time (if it's in date mood that is), and then RClicked once more again to reflect the date, which will now be correctly shown according to the machine's clock. We're not considering this a flaw really, but we'll take care of it later and fix the problem anyway ... * * * Usage and installation : Date1.6 can be run from any drawer. If run via Shell on all ROM`s, then a message concerning the author's name, phone number, and place of residancy, will appear in the window unless the task is to be run by using the `Run >Nil:' command template ... When also clicking on Date1.6's window, author's phone number will be displayed on the Workbench's title bar ... Date1.6 can also be run via Startup-Sequence or User-Startup as well. Best place to make use of it in such a case (users of Workbench1.3 take special note) would be prior to the LoadWb command, ie near the end of the script ... * * * Bugs, future upgrades support, warranty considerations, copyright notice, etc : We tried as best as we could, to make this l`le utility work alright and with least (not `list' !) of problems ... We're just sure however that there will be some points of inconsistency or whatever, encountered anyway when the same program (however perfectly running - like Date1.6 ;^) will be handled by various working tastes, styles, system configurations and so on ... A few points (of problems ?) for you to be reminded with are : When run via its icon in Wb1.3, another small window will also appear at the topmost left hand side of the screen, with the name Date1.6 on its drag bar. This is due to the icon's specs which are different in many ways from the usual ROM1.3's ways of handling icons. Nothing can be done presently to `cure' this, but maybe in the future ... There would also be another slight problem with Date1.6's own window size when used in Workbench1.3 : it won't be able to show the `year' bit of the date, only displaying the day's name, day's date, and month. It will be something like this on a Workbench 1.3's screen : Thu 09-02 The year bit in that case will still be working correctly (even though not being shown) as long as the system's clock with the Christian calendar is set rightly ... Thus the day and month bits of the display will still be `correct' too ... The reason for this is that we at HR-IC decided to make the Date1.6 utility to run most properly on the `new'er systems than the older ones, since most Amiga users now are A1200 owners ... If there's still anyone out there not upgrading yet after a decade, they'll surely be doing quite alright without making use of utilities like this working in a `perfect' way ... Whatever the ROM one may be using in one's Amiga, when using Date1.6, do please be aware of the fact that Date won't be able -yet- to calculate the so called `intercalary' years ... (More on the intercalary years and other calendar issues, in the section `Some general information worth considering' below ...). Of course we could kind of overcome such a defect, but we couldn't wait at least 2 years more before releasing this utility to the Amiga PD ... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - There's as usual then, the customary statements to be made regarding the programmer's inability to give guarantees of whatever the kind in relation to this program working perfectly for everyone. Also, as mentioned earlier in this note, we'd really like to make Date1.6 `bigger' than this, and delivering the user with lots of better and more useful features ... Achieving such a goal, is very much dependant on user feedback - naturally ! Do please then make us informed with your ideas, bug reprorts, anything ... Date1.6 is herewith declared as a thoroughly and utterly freely distributable PD product for Amiga computers. Of course, if you got this program via an AF DD\CD, then the Amiga Format of Future Publishing's permission on further distributing it has to be obtained from them first. We've asked them already to be kindly granting such a licence to all probable users ... We can be contacted at the address and phone number given in the end of this note. Thanx a lot for reading this far ... * * * Some general information worth considering : As regards to time, date, calendars and so on, there are similarities between differenst nations' standards and conventions used in this relation, and there are not ... For instance, every day is divided into (almost) exactly 24 hours in Iran as in practically everywhere else in the world today ... Or we have seven days per week, and as far as I'm concerned, it's the same as all other countries on the planet Earth presently ... But there are some minor as well as sometimes perhaps major differences between some other aspects of counting the seconds and keeping track of the time and date in this country, which may be of interest to those who're not aware of, yet wishing to know about them, for whatever the reason ... Some of the `basic' and major facts and figures concerning the differences refered to above -shortly and with no particular precision in details- are : Week days' names `appearance' in Iran, are kind of similar to that of the Western countries. But there are major differences, especially to do with their weekly order. Note the following table please : Persian Calendar Week Days Names and their Order ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ English Persian ------------------ ------------------ Monday (week's 1st day) doa`shan`beh (week's 3rd day) Tuesday seh`shan`beh Wedensday cheh`huhr`shan`beh Thursday pandj`shan`beh Friday djoam`eh (week's holiday) Saturday (week's holiday) shan`beh (week's 1st day) Sunday (week's holiday) yek`shan`beh -------------------------------------------------------------- In the above table, the right order for the Iranian week days is something like this : shan`beh, yek`shan`beh, doa`shan`beh, seh`shan`beh, cheh`huhr`shan`beh, pandj`shan`beh, and djoam`eh. The character -`- in the names is to represent syllables only, and is not used when writing the words themselves in Farsi. The -`- thereof anyway, can be helpful for proper pronuciation of these names. Refer to `Please Note' below for more information on this ... Use of `capital letters' as the initial letter in the proper and special names (day names and their abbreviations included) is not customary in the writing of Farsi scriptures either, due to the `limitations' in this respect of the Arabic caligraphy predominantly in use in Iran for ages now ... Shanbeh is first day of the week in the Persian calendar. Then would come `yekshanbeh', `doashanbeh', `sehshanbeh' etc, with the suffices `yek', `doa', `seh', etc, meaning `one', `two, `three' and so on respectively ... The word `shanbeh' which forms the basis of the names for the first six days of the week, is apparently derived from the Hebrew word Sabath, and the same may also hold true for the word Saturday in English ?!? Djomeh, the last week day or the national weekend and the religous weekly holiday, is an exception : it has no number attached to it nor does it obey the `shanbeh basic rule' (poor fellow !) ... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - So far as the comparison between the two Iranian and Western calendars go, there is a somewhat big problem here though, that being of the months in the two calendars not even as relatively coinciding with each other as the way days of the week do ... The Persian calendar is a Solar one, while the Georgian one is different. The latter's Solar too, but the way days in a month are counted and calculated are very much different from that of the Persian. The differences don't just end there, but that's perhaps the main one making -at least- direct comparison of the two a bit too difficult to do ... And this is of special concern, where and when international commerce and business relations prevail. The Weekly holiday in Iran, is Friday, when there is still some activity going on in the countries making use of a Christian calendar ... On the other hand, the Christian calendar's weekend is on the two days Saturday and Sunday, ie where and when it's just the begining of the week in Islamic countries, with Persian calendar in Iran using the same procedure ... Then the way there are three weekend days one after the other, makes international communication between the Islamic and Christian countries -direct phone contacts in particular- to suffer from certain problems ... The problem isn't as much annoying as it used to be prior to using computers, sattlelites, fax machines and so on ... But it's still a problem whose utter solution hasn't been devised in a practical way which might well suit all parties concerned ... HR-IC have their own suggestion for solving the problem this way : Three `internationally' approved consecutive holidays in a week, and another four days to work ... (With all Amigans sitting at their Miggies gaming, programming, painting, animating, surfing, ... in the 3-days-long weekend - yummy >;). Just joking of course, but not a bad idea anyway ain't it ? Back to the comparison story to do with the dual calendars, we were just debating over the differences thereof concerned with either calendar's way of handling the number of days in a month, and the order the year starts and ends as regards to the season, to which we'll come to in more detail later ... It was said that wroking out a direct comparison between the two calendar's months\days is not as easy as it is for weeks\days. But there is a certain clue in here to help simplify things a bit : the months in the Persian calendar start and end with practically identical unison with the horoscopic periods favoured in the countries with a Georgian calendar. This is of no coincidence : the Indian horoscope which is in use in those lands, utilize the same basis as do the Persian calendar's conventions for calcualting the rotation of Earth and other planets in the Solar System in their orbits aroud the Sun, Moon around the Earth, and the whole of the Solar System around itself and the Universe ... The methodology used in this connection is not purely Persian, but it's very much related to this country's ancient astronomical and astrological night sky observation procedures in use for ages ... The counting of years in Iran, is of course based on Mohammad the Islamic prophet's Hidgrat (departure) from Mecca to Medina ... That's why the Islamic calendars are called `Hidgri'. Persian calendar, although an Islamic one too, is different in some ways from say the Arabic countries' calendar ... Theirs is Lunar, based on the prophet's Hidgrat, Ours is Solar while still based on the same idea ... Thus theirs's called "Hidgri Ghamari" (Ghamar means Moon in Arabic), ours's "Hidgri Khorshidi" or "Shamsi" (Khorshid & Shams mean Sun in Persian and Arabic respectively) ... The basis for the calculation of years in Islamic countries then, is the same but the handling of other affairs are different ... They keep track of a year's days according to the observation of Moon's coming and going from her first crescent to the next, making up the month as 28 days, but having a 12 month year of about 355 days, because they have either 29 or 30 days months, and in their own special order of ways .. Persian calendar works and sorts things out in a different way, with its year being 365 years normally (to which we'll be coming later) ... This has caused the Persian year to be 1378, while the same year in an Arabic calendar reads 1420, even though both calculate their years from the same day, 1420 years ago ... (As of the Christian year of 1999). The months in an Arabic calendar are always `revolving', with every year starting in a different season, thus making up a kind of `variable new year's eve' happening sometimes in Winter, the other time in Autumn and so on, every time going about 11 days backwards ... In the Christian countries, the birth of Christ is used as the basis for calculating the year's start, and it's always the same day every year, on 1 January ... Similarly, Persian year starts on the very first day of Spring time. This is the day Earth ends one whole revolution around the Sun, ending the cold Winter days to start a new year with milder weather and calmer days of Spring, with all that is under the Sun awakening from their long cold nights of half asleep inactivity right into the animating warmth of the oncoming new season ... The `awakening process' refered to above, does start at least two weeks before that day actually, but according to traditional tales and ancient belief, and perhaps to make things a bit more romantically poetic, the `Exact Beginning Of Life', is related to this `special' day ... This day, 1st of Farvardin, is in perfectly permanent coincidence with 21 March in the Christian calendar every year. The rule would be broken however by the Intercalary or `odd' years occuring every four years, where the day would step backward one day and match with 20 March. Calculating Intercalary years are also different in the two calendars, but just let me not get into that one and get on with more important things to do in here ... The first six months in the Persian calendar, are all 31 days each. The second half of the year then comprises of five 30 day months plus a 29 day one in the end. There is an Intercalary year every four years (with some exceptions) wherein the last month, ie the month Esphand, would be 30 days instead of the usual 29 ... There is a lot more to all this, but it's both out of the main aims of this document and not in the writer's knowledge and technical abilities to get into them with more detail ... To further complement the Week Days Names table already given above, lets give another table with similar information to do with Year Months Names to illustrate the comparison made between the two Pesian and Georgian calendars in a somewhat better manner : Persian Calendar Year Month Names, their Order, and their Dates ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Persian days Georgian date Horoscope ------------------------- ------------- --------- bae`huhr (Spring) 1. faer`vaer`deen 31 21 Mar ~ 20 Apr Aries 2. oar`dee`beh`hesht = 21 Apr ~ 21 May Taurus 3. khoar`dhud = 22 May ~ 21 Jun Gemini tuh`best`uhn (Summer) 4. teeer = 22 Jun ~ 22 Jul Cancer 5. moar`duhd = 23 Jul ~ 22 Aug Leo 6. shaeh`ree`vaer = 23 Aug ~ 22 Sep Virgo puh`eez (Autumn) 7. mehhr 30 23 Sep ~ 22 Oct Libra 8. ub`un 30 23 Oct ~ 21 Nov Scorpio 9. uh`zaer 30 22 Nov ~ 21 Dec Sagitarius zem`est`uhn (Winter) 10. day 30 22 Dec ~ 20 Jan Capricorn 11. bae`hman 30 21 Jan ~ 19 Feb Aquarius 12. esph`and 29 (30) 20 Feb ~ 19 Mar (20) Pisces -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: The Persian names for days and months in both of the tables above are given on the Amiga's `Speak:' function basis. This means that if you type these names just the way they are in a Shell window script, and have Say, or `Copy To Speak:' read them for you, the pronunciations of the words will be very closely resembling that of the Iranian's, except for Speak's (American) accent ... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - There is -as refered to earlier- more to do with the above information. People interested, will surely be able to find better sources to do with this in their local libraries, Web sites and so on ... Thank you very much for reading so far ... * * * We can be contacted at : __ __ ____ __ ___ || || |¯_¯\ || /¯¯¯| ||_|| ||_|| ___ || | /¯¯ | _ | | _ | |___| || || ||¯|| || \\ || | \__ || || || \\ || \___| ¯¯ ¯¯ ¯¯ ¯¯ ¯¯ ¯¯¯ Hooshmand Rayaneh partnership =========================================================================== TMail : Mohamad H. Arab No. 48 Sardjangaldari phase 1 Jomhouri-e-Eslami blv. Kerman Iran PC 76187 47367 (`PC', stands for `Post Code', or ZIP - TOO ! - [exclude this line ...]) ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ EMail : soon ... phone : 0098 (Int`l [not `Intel®' !] code) 0341 (inter-city code) 40102 (home number) please note : if contact from outside Iran, the 1st 0 digit of the inter-city code should be omitted ! At the moment, we strongly prefer TMails though ... HR-IC Apr-99 Ord-78 Moh-20 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other HR-IC products so far done for PD release : - Call3.5 a GUI `timer\caller' utility based on Amiga's Speak function ... - Date1.6 whose document you're having in front of you ... - GASstarter2.1 `auto' Game\Application\Script starter (best meant for cRAM-only Amigas, but great for others with MB`s of memory too ...) More about HR-IC in `Call3.5.guide' ... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] B L I S S F U L I G N O R A N C E [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]