Fritz: Win Best Test 1/70001.ZIP/70001/WINWARE1/PHOEBE/PHOEBE.DOC

Text File | 1993-09-26 | 9KB | 181 lines

                                Phoebe


                                                March 20, 1992

   Introduction:

        Thank you for down-loading Phoebe, a small Windows utility program
    that gives various astrological information related to the moon.
    Phoebe is named after the Greek Goddess of the moon who was also the
    protector of children.  I wrote Phoebe to aid the Vietnamese refugee
    children without parents who are in refugee camps in the Philippines.

        The Center for Aid to Displaced Persons, CADP, is an agency run by
    the Philippine Daughters of Charity of the Catholic church which
    provides shelter, counseling and education to the unaccompanied minors
    in the Philippines First Asylum Camp (PFAC).  If you enjoy Phoebe, I
    beg you to make a donation to CADP (no matter how small).  You may send
    the money directly to CADP or you may send it to Hong Bang, an
    organization in New Orleans that works closely with CADP.  Hong Bang
    will forward any money received for CADP directly with no overhead
    costs of any kind.  Both CADP and Hong Bang are nonprofit
    agencies staffed through volunteers.  Hong Bang is dedicated to
    improving the health, education and social welfare of Vietnamese,
    and has helped volunteers work in the refugee camps.


   Address:

   CADP, Inc.                      CADP, Inc.
   PO Box 3273                     c/o Hong Bang
   Manila, Philippines             2476 Park Place Dr.
                                   Gretna, LA 70053



   Phoebe:

        Phoebe calculates the sunrise and sunset times to within about a
    minute and the moonrise and moonset times to within 15 minutes by using
    successive approximation.  The equations are based on the book
    Astronomical Formulae for Calculators by Jean Meeus published by
    Willmann-Bell.  To calculate these times accurately, Phoebe must use
    the correct local longitude and latitude and the correct difference in
    time from GMT.  Odd values for these numbers will lead Phoebe to
    calculate odd values for the rise and set times.  Phoebe's icon
    is set to resemble the phase of the moon and zodiac information
    is given for the time phoebe was started.

        The easiest way to set the local parameters is to select
    Location/Select City from the menu and then select the nearest city,
    and use the Adjust Hours and Adjust Minutes option to vary the times to
    agree with the times in a local newspaper.  Check the system time
    (Location/Show System Time) to verify that the difference in hours from
    GMT is correct.  For locations such as Newfoundland that are half-hours
    difference from GMT, set the Adjust Minutes option to 30.  Alternately
    one can use Adjust Hours, Change Longitude, Change Latitudes options to
    set everything correctly.  Your local library should be able to tell
    you the exact Latitude and Longitude for your city.

        Use Recalculate to update the display once the location information
    has been changed.

        Once the location parameters are set, check the sunrise/sunset
    times in an almanac or newspaper.  The Adjust Minutes parameter can be
    used to take care of any small local differences in time caused by
    different altitudes).  Once all of these location parameters are to
    your liking, save them with the Save Changes option and Phoebe will
    write them to a Phoebe.ini file and set itself up correctly the next
    time.

        Most systems default to Eastern time, although there is an obscure
    DOS environment variable TZ to set DOS for other Time-zones.  If this
    variable is set Phoebe will use it.  Phoebe provides enough control to
    correctly set the location information without setting this variable in
    your autoexec.bat file.

        Setting the location information for Phoebe is much easier than
    describing it in writing.  Note that because the moon's period is
    roughly 29.5 days the rising and setting times vary greatly.  Sometimes
    the moon rises and sets in the same day and sometimes the old moon sets
    and then the young moon rises.  There is one day a month where the moon
    rises and does not set until the next day and one day where the moon
    sets but does not rise until the next day.


   The Lunar and Horary Date:

        The Lunar Date is today's date on the Eastern Lunar calendar.  The
    Horary Date is the date on the Chinese calendar given in terms of the
    Heavenly Stems (Colors) and Heavenly Branches (Animals).  The ten
    Heavenly Stems are Purple, Black, Orange, Red, Golden, Green, White
    Yellow, Blue and Silver.  The actual words in Chinese or Vietnamese are
    not the names of colors, but in Chinese Numerology these colors are
    assigned to the stems.  I used the colors instead of the more
    traditional "first stem", "second stem" translation in hopes that the
    translation would be more pleasing.  The names of the Heavenly Branches
    are the names of animals and I followed the Vietnamese style in
    translating them as Rat, Ox, Tiger, Cat, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat,
    Monkey, Chicken, Dog and Pig.  The Heavenly Stem and Branch pairs
    rotate through a sixty unit cycle.  Adding the place value for the day,
    month and year, dividing by 8 and using the dividend and remainder to
    generate a character from the I Ching determines whether the day is a
    lucky or unlucky day.

    References:
        Astronomical Formulae for Calculators by Jean Meeus.
        Calendar Conversions by Way of the Julian Day Number by O L Harvey.
        An Anthology of the I Ching by Sherril and Chu.
        The I Ching by Sam Reiffer.



   DOS Time-zone:

        Phoebe relies on the DOS system time to calculate the times of
   the rise and set of the sun and the moon.  Usually DOS will report
   Eastern Standard Time (EST) or Eastern Daylight Time when the
   time-zone is requested.  To correct this difference, an environment
   variable TZ can be set in the autoexec.bat file.

   For example,

   SET  TZ=CST6CDT

   will set the time-zone to Central Standard Time, 6 hours difference
   from GMT and Central Daylight Time in the summer.  Someone in
   Indiana (Indiana has no daylight savings time.) may use

   SET  TZ = CST6

   which sets the time-zone information to Central Standard Time, 6
   hours difference from GMT, no daylight savings time in the summer.

   Someone in California might set the time-zone variable by:

   SET  TZ = PST8PDT

   The syntax for this command is,

   SET  TZ = zzz[+/-]d[d][lll]

   where zzz is the three letter abbreviation for standard time,
   [+/-]d[d] is a one or two digit number, optionally signed that
   gives the time difference for standard time from GMT.  Time-zones
   West of GMT are positive and time-zones East of GMT are negative.
   This number should range between -12 and 12 for correct results.
   [lll] is the optional designation for daylight savings time or
   summer time.  If [lll] is present, DOS will use daylight savings
   time in computing the time.  If this string is not present DOS
   assumes TZ = EST5EDT as the default string.  It is not necessary
   to go to the trouble to set this variable to use Phoebe.


   Distribution:

        This program may be freely distributed without cost, provided
   that it is not changed in any way.  The current version is 1.21.
   Bug reports and comments and suggestions can be sent to Anthony Nguyen
   in care of Hong Bang.


   Closing Notes:

        I hope you enjoy Phoebe.  I hope that some kindhearted people
   enjoy it enough to help CADP care for the poor, lonely children
   in the camps.  Everyday the situation grows worse for the refugees and
   for children with no parents in the camps the situation is becoming
   unbearable.  CADP helps them to endure by providing them with
   counselling, education, recreation and shelter.  I pray to God that
   this program in some way helps the volunteer