Astronomical Software for Atari?

[Gunstar]

@JagChris bumping this thread reminded me that about 6 months ago I purchased an original copy of Atari Planetarium, in mint condition, off eBay, for $20 shipping included.

 

 

Of course a few days after I received it, I was browsing Video61's site, and found that they have NOS copies of Atari Planetarium for $12.95! Just in case anyone else would like the full original release with disk and manual,etc.

 

http://www.atarisales.com/compdisk.html

Edited December 30, 2021 by Gunstar

[ClausB]

@JagChris

I'm not aware of any update to those polynomials. My friend wrote Pascal ephemeris programs using orbital elements. I suppose I could adapt those.

 

In the day I was planning to write a graphical planetarium program but never finished it. I remember going to sleep one night thinking about star database formats. Woke up early with a good idea and wrote it down, but I've since lost the note.

Edited December 30, 2021 by ClausB

[_The Doctor__]

I'll blame stellar drift..

[JagChris]

On 12/29/2021 at 5:28 PM, Gunstar said:

@JagChris bumping this thread reminded me that about 6 months ago I purchased an original copy of Atari Planetarium, in mint condition, off eBay, for $20 shipping included.

 

 

Of course a few days after I received it, I was browsing Video61's site, and found that they have NOS copies of Atari Planetarium for $12.95! Just in case anyone else would like the full original release with disk and manual,etc.

 

http://www.atarisales.com/compdisk.html

I was today years old when I found out this is a port of a C64 program.

 

 

[_The Doctor__]

except that deltron had the three doctors and coding going for both at the same time in 1984 sharing a bit of code going in either direction and per norm Atari had to make it their own, releasing the package in 1985 or so the story goes. someone put it up on archive org as 1983 but the software and manuals all say 1984 for Commodore and the Atari dates as 1984 and 1985. It was later ported or converted to PC and Apple in 1988 some mention of CP/M disks also.

All of this pretty much was NASA information ported over to the home computers with computations and conversions by a few guys with Doctorates. They did a pretty decent job, don't you think? Sky Travel was to be a trademark technology, and Home Planetarium the name. It became Sky Travel by Deltron though. I wonder who truly remembers what. Who's left alive and what might they remember or forget?

[JagChris]

16 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

except that deltron had the three doctors and coding going for both at the same time in 1984 sharing a bit of code going in either direction and per norm Atari had to make it their own, releasing the package in 1985 or so the story goes. someone put it up on archive org as 1983 but the software and manuals all say 1984 for Commodore and the Atari dates as 1984 and 1985. It was later ported or converted to PC and Apple in 1988 some mention of CP/M disks also.

All of this pretty much was NASA information ported over to the home computers with computations and conversions by a few guys with Doctorates. They did a pretty decent job, don't you think? Sky Travel was to be a trademark technology, and Home Planetarium the name. It became Sky Travel by Deltron though. I wonder who truly remembers what. Who's left alive and what might they remember or forget?

Is there an interview or pod cast with them anywhere? The manual I have says 1986.

[_The Doctor__]

Check out the copyrights on the software screens also.

[_The Doctor__]

[_The Doctor__]

hmmm PlanATARIum isn't mentioned in the thread. Textual though.

[JagChris]

Is there an interview with these guys? Searching comes up with nothing.

[JagChris]

There appears to be a coordinate bug in the program.

 

Quote

Setting the longitude and latitude of your location is tricky. On the program's world map, San Francisco's coordinates appear to be in Washington. Therefore, if your coordinates are not listed in the manual, consult an almanac. Don't guess, because you'll be way off.

 

[+DjayBee]

2 hours ago, JagChris said:

Is there an interview with these guys? Searching comes up with nothing.

Ask @Savetz

[zzip]

On 7/7/2020 at 11:13 AM, DrVenkman said:

Oh come now, eclipse predictions go back thousands of years. The Greeks certainly didn’t need a 286 to do it.

But they apparently did have analog "computers" like the Antikythera mechanism to help with such things:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

 

[Atari8guy]

I don't have the a8 version, but just a few nights back, I loaded up the ST version and plunked in Edmonton's lat and long and the current date, then looked for a few constellations, they were all in the right spots (as far as I could tell).  I should probably buy the a8 version....

[ClausB]

Could someone compare Atari Planetarium's present planet positions with something like Heavens Above?

Edited April 3, 2023 by ClausB

[Ricky Spanish]

On 7/7/2020 at 9:09 AM, AeroDD said:

Out of curiosity, I checked the article and code to see if it was Y2K compliant. The article says it works for dates from 1977 and into the future, the BASIC code requires a year input > 1977. Makes me wonder how far off the calculated positions for a date some 35 years after the program was written are from reality. 

I compared Atari planetarium with startracker app. Pretty bang on. I use AP all the time for my astrophotography hobby. 

[manterola]

I still check the (current) lunar eclipses, and the date and time forecast is good.

Using it since 1989 or so and I can say that this software is still kicking ...

Good thing is that now I live close to Washington, DC so I get the right coordinates right after the start up.

[JagChris]

15 hours ago, manterola said:

I still check the (current) lunar eclipses, and the date and time forecast is good.

Using it since 1989 or so and I can say that this software is still kicking ...

Good thing is that now I live close to Washington, DC so I get the right coordinates right after the start up.

Are you still using it on original disk or are you on SD now with it?

[manterola]

 

8 hours ago, JagChris said:

Are you still using it on original disk or are you on SD now with it?

I usually load it using fujinet. But sometimes I use the pirate diskette

 copy I bought in the 80s.

 

.

[JagChris]

2 hours ago, manterola said:

 

I usually load it using fujinet. But sometimes I use the pirate diskette

 copy I bought in the 80s.

 

.

I was having intermittent trouble with my atr. So I downloaded from somewhere else a diff atr copy. If I still have no luck I might come bumming yours.

 

If we can find the original authors and if they have the source code I wonder if they would be interested in perhaps updating it and through Fuji net you could download updates for subscription just a thought.

[+DjayBee]

50 minutes ago, JagChris said:

So I downloaded from somewhere else a diff atr copy. If I still have no luck I might come bumming yours.

https://archive.org/details/@cs_stuttgart?query=planetarium

[Keatah]

Subscription software on 8-bit machines? HaHa!

[+DjayBee]

25 minutes ago, Keatah said:

Subscription software on 8-bit machines? HaHa!

A use case for FujiNet, @tschak909 surely never has dreamed of. 🤣

[JagChris]

9 hours ago, DjayBee said:

A use case for FujiNet, @tschak909 surely never has dreamed of. 🤣

Day 1 DLC! 😂

[JagChris]

On 4/4/2023 at 11:50 PM, DjayBee said:

https://archive.org/details/@cs_stuttgart?query=planetarium

I'm going to have to try this. I got two copies that freeze up.at different places. Sooner or later it's map screen or info screen.