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Text File | 1989-02-25 | 10.1 KB | 242 lines

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 to version 2.0 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. (Bug fixes and minor enhancements to this version will be released however, so please send me any bug reports with your wish lists). 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". It may take an update or two for any changes in the settings window to take affect. If the globe is not circular, your monitor may need some adjustment. 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. If you have Galileo and like it, please send in your registration cards if you haven't already. More data-disks are in preparation at this very moment, and we need your name and address to inform you when they're ready. (End of the unabashed commercial announcement!)