Xref: utzoo sci.astro:3633 comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d:2280
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tektronix!percival!parsely!agora!rickc
From: rickc@agora.UUCP (Rick Coates)
Newsgroups: sci.astro,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: planet.exe query
Summary: MSDOS strikes again...
Keywords: planet.exe
Message-ID: <1414@agora.UUCP>
Date: 13 Mar 89 00:20:38 GMT
References: <6528@ecsvax.UUCP> <1390@agora.UUCP> <6617@ecsvax.UUCP>
Organization: Advanced Solutions, Hillsboro, OR
Lines: 31

In article <6617@ecsvax.UUCP>, jdmce@ecsvax.UUCP (Duncan McEwen) writes:
> Rick,
> 
> Thanks for planet.exe.  The only other question I have that might be
> of general interest is this:  I notice that for dates before ca. 1980
> and after 2030 the program gives planet positions but the rise and set
> information is no longer available.  Are the planet positions still 
> accurate?  Would it be easy to modify the program to give rise/set
> data for a broader range of dates?  

I never tried this, but I bet the answer is: MSDOS has problems with
dates before 1980 (I know) and I bet after 2030.  I use the Unix
like date routines provided by Microsoft C for this.  The answer is:
recompile on a real system (even then, it would have problems before 1970
and after 1970+2^32 seconds, and, of course, I haven't supplied source).
The other option is to re-write localtime().

> 
> I sure would appreciate it if you would post moon.exe and sun.exe and
> I bet others subscribers would too.

I doubt I will, at this point, since the total comments have been about
two.  I am also considering rolling the whole thing into one (planets,
sun, moon) program.

Rick Coates

...!tektronix!reed!percival!agora!rickc

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