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--
AAAAA SSSSS TTTTTTT RRRRRR OOOOO L OOOOO GGGGG
A A S S T R R O O L O O G G
A A S T R R O O L O O G
AAAAAAA SSSSS T RRRRRR O O L O O G GGGG
A A S T R R O O L O O G G
A A S S T R R O O L O O G G
A A SSSSS T R R OOOOO LLLLLLL OOOOO GGGGG
** VERSION 6.00 **
History file for Astrolog version 6.00 (December 2015):
This is a comprehensive history list of the first 26 versions of
Astrolog that have been released to the Net over the past twenty-four
years. This file is mainly for those who have version 6.00 or later,
but aren't yet familiar with the earlier versions in which many of the
other features not just new to the latest version were described and
documented. Below is a listing of all versions of Astrolog that have
been released (up to version 6.00) after which for each version, is
listed the description of the new features and changes added to that
version. Taken together, all these update descriptions add up to a
comprehensive list of Astrolog's features and command switches.
[Features added to version:]
1) v1.00 posted Wed, 11 Sep 91 00:00:38 GMT (Initial planet calculations)
2) v1.10 posted Sat, 14 Sep 91 00:02:16 GMT (Aspects; different house systems)
3) v1.20 posted Fri, 20 Sep 91 23:56:55 GMT (File input; wheels; relationships)
4) v1.30 posted Wed, 9 Oct 91 03:17:04 GMT (Transits; searches; astro-graphy)
5) v1.40 posted Tue, 12 Nov 91 01:18:13 GMT (Restrictions; other conveniences)
6) v2.00 posted Wed, 11 Dec 91 07:11:25 GMT (X charts; multiple source files)
7) v2.10 posted Tue, 18 Feb 92 07:59:03 GMT (Color; more X charts; local space;
more progression and file support)
8) v2.20 posted Wed, 3 Jun 92 00:25:40 GMT (Stars; space charts; influences;
astrolog.dat; more relationships)
9) v2.25 posted Thu, 18 Jun 92 18:54:43 GMT (Bug fixes over v2.20)
10)v2.30 posted Fri, 12 Sep 92 01:20:42 GMT (Interpretations; comments, etc.)
11)v2.40 posted Wed, 20 Jan 93 03:23:16 GMT (Ansi text color; midpoint lists)
12)v3.00 posted Sun, 21 Mar 93 12:22:27 GMT (PC Graphics; more interpretations)
13)v3.05 posted Thu, 20 May 93 23:40:00 GMT (Bug fixes over v3.00)
14)v3.10 posted Sun, 26 Sep 93 08:29:58 GMT (Transit influences; efficiency)
15)v4.00 posted Wed, 5 Jan 94 10:22:11 GMT (Accurate formulas; PostScript;
metafiles; better wheel charts)
16)v4.10 posted Mon, 21 Mar 94 10:58:54 GMT (Improvements, fixes over v4.00)
17)v4.20 posted Fri, 23 Sep 94 07:19:01 GMT (New files; constellations; macros;
new objects; dispositors)
18)v4.30 posted Mon, 28 Nov 94 09:35:33 GMT (Parallel aspects; bug fixes)
19)v4.40 posted Sun, 12 Feb 95 04:28:11 GMT (Macintosh support; Arabic parts)
20)v5.00 posted Mon, 24 Jul 95 10:55:53 GMT (Windows interface; asteroid files)
21)v5.05 posted Sun, 20 Aug 95 09:29:49 GMT (Bug fixes over v5.00)
22)v5.10 posted Sun, 31 Dec 95 11:56:00 GMT (Chart printing; setting saving)
23)v5.20 posted Sun, 24 Mar 96 14:05:00 GMT (Gauquelin sectors; printing fixes)
24)v5.30 posted Mon, 30 Sep 96 11:55:00 GMT (Mac graphics; tri and quad-wheels)
25)v5.40 posted Thu, 24 Dec 98 14:22:00 GMT (Vedic style charts)
26)v6.00 posted Mon, 22 Dec 15 04:47:57 GMT (Swiss ephemeris, esoteric astrology)
All of the above versions of Astrolog except 2.25, 3.05, and 5.05 and
those after it were posted in direct source file, shell archive,
and/or zip archive form to the newsgroup alt.astrology. Versions
2.10, 2.25, 3.05 and 4.10 were submitted in shell archive format to
comp.sources.misc. In addition, version 1.30 was also posted to
talk.religion.newage. A beta release of version 5.20 was created but
wasn't made generally available.
--
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Astrolog and all chart display routines and anything
not enumerated below used in this program are Copyright (C) 1991-2015
by Walter D. Pullen (Astara@msn.com, http://www.astrolog.org/astrolog.htm).
Permission is granted to freely use, modify, and distribute these
routines provided these credits and notices remain unmodified with any
altered or distributed versions of the program.
The main ephemeris databases and calculation routines are from the library
SWISS EPHEMERIS and are programmed and copyright 1997-2008 by Astrodienst
AG. The use of that source code is subject to the license for the Swiss
Ephemeris Free Edition, available at http://www.astro.com/swisseph. This
copyright notice must not be changed or removed by any user of this program.
Additional ephemeris databases and formulas are from the calculation
routines in the program PLACALC and are programmed and Copyright (C)
1989,1991,1993 by Astrodienst AG and Alois Treindl (alois@azur.ch). The
use of that source code is subject to regulations made by Astrodienst
Zurich, and the code is not in the public domain. This copyright notice
must not be changed or removed by any user of this program.
The original planetary calculation routines used in this program have been
copyrighted and the initial core of this program was mostly a conversion
to C of the routines created by James Neely as listed in 'Manual of Computer
Programming for Astrologers', by Michael Erlewine, available from Matrix
Software.
The PostScript code within the core graphics routines are programmed and
Copyright (C) 1992-1993 by Brian D. Willoughby (brianw@sounds.wa.com).
More formally: This program is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is
distributed in the hope that it will be useful and inspiring, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
for more details, a copy of which is in the LICENSE.HTM file included
with Astrolog, and at http://www.gnu.org
************************************************
Astrolog 1.00 posted Wed, 11 Sep 91 00:00:38 GMT
************************************************
There seems to have been zillions of requests for unix system programs
which can calculate planetary positions, or a birthchart in general.
I had been looking all over the place for one for a long while without
success, until someone posted the fact that Matrix software produces a
book called 'Manual of Computer Programming for Astrologers' which
contains all kinds of useful formulas. Anyway, since there doesn't
seem to be an astrology program in existance anywhere, I decided to
make one myself and got the book and converted the routines to C and
made a chart casting program around them. At last here is a program
which can do your chart for you! Cut out the portion of this article
between the "cut here"'s, and compile the program with "cc -O
astrolog.c -lm". Execute it simply by entering "astrolog" (assuming
that's the name of the executable), and the program will ask you for
all the birth info and will give the planet/house positions. (e.g.
for here in Seattle right now for the seven prompts I would enter: 9;
10; 1991; 16.05 [for 5:05pm, with daylight time in effect]; 122.20;
47.36) The program calculates the positions of all planets, chiron,
the four main asteroids, as well as stuff like the part of fortune and
vertex. There are option switches (do astrolog -H to see them) which
allow siderial and heliocentric based charts to be done as well. Enjoy
the program, but remember the copyright message. Yes, I know the code
is currently very messy, but I wanted to get this posted as fast as
possible so we can start calculating stuff right away. I'm currently
adding other features, like aspects, other house systems besides
placidus, an option to generate the chart for this exact moment, etc,
to the program, so expect future enhancements. There's also another
program I have at home which generates nice graphic wheel charts (for
a different computer system) given the birth data (makes nice X11
bitmaps) which I hope to be able to convert soon also. Anyway:
************************************************
Astrolog 1.10 posted Sat, 14 Sep 91 00:02:16 GMT
************************************************
Several changes and fixes have been made to the astrolog.c birthchart
calculator since the first posting four days ago:
Some problems that people had with compiling it have been corrected:
* The value PI is now explicitly defined, instead of depending on the math
library which may or may not have defined it already.
* All line lengths are less than 80 characters, to help prevent line
splitting or cutting from those whose news servers puke on too long lines.
The minor bug in which the moon's north node was *not* displayed as being
retrograde has been fixed, as well as a rare display alignment glitch.
New features have been added to the program (which may be combined):
* Aspects and midpoint display is now supported: Invoke as astrolog -g and
a 20x20 grid showing the midpoint locations for each planet, and showing
if any aspects are present and how accurate they are, is displayed.
* A couple of different house systems are now supported: Invoke as
astrolog -c <number> to change the system from the default Placidus.
(See astrolog -H for help on what each number refers to.)
* Additional information is displayed when the chart is cast:
(1) Whether or not each planet is in it's ruling sign, or fall, as well
as displaying the same information for ruling or debilitating houses.
(2) The sum of the signs in each element and mode and their totals is
displayed in a grid form.
* For those with unix systems who can handle the time calls (If your
system pukes on trying to compile this, simply comment out the
#define TIME line at the beginning), the program now supports displaying
the chart for the time at the current moment! In other words, invoke as
astrolog -n and see where the planets are right now. (This is fun - the
house cusps change 1' about every 4 seconds!) You will need to
change the #defines for the default longitude and latitude in the code
though, or else specify where you are explicitly by using the -l switch
to change the default location.
* Although minor, some more helpful info is displayed when entering the
chart data, as well as a header for the columns when the chart info is
displayed.
Again future enhancements will include: supporting yet more house
systems, and allowing the chart to be displayed in a wheel format on
the text screen (not too difficult) or graphically in an X11 window or
bitmap (will take a lot longer to do, although I've done one already
for a different system), allowing saving charts to files and comparing
them with each other or the current status (transits), allowing
progressions to be specified, and maybe a few other things.
I probably could have done this as a patch, but I don't know how to
pack or even unpack patch files, so I guess that's out of the
question. After a few more versions, I might get this in
comp.sources.whatever, but for now I'm just posting it here because
the program is still relatively new. Anyway, sorry if this is a long
article, but anyway, here is the updated version of astrolog.c (can be
compiled, extracted, as before):
************************************************
Astrolog 1.20 posted Fri, 20 Sep 91 23:56:55 GMT
************************************************
Ok, astrology lovers, here is the new and improved version 1.2 (Third
posting) of the Astrolog birthchart calculator, complete with all
kinds of new features, like allowing computation of transits,
progressions, relationships between charts, printing of house wheel
charts, etc:
First a list of bug fixes over version 1.1:
1) The glaring bug in which, if you said you wanted the Campanus system of
houses, you would in fact always get Placidus, is fixed.
2) The program processed dates during the Gregorian calendar incorrectly, and
this has been fixed.
3) The default longitude and latitude were truncated to integers, causing
loss of a few minutes accuracy in the house cusps when using the -n
option, which has been fixed.
4) The program now no longer core dumps if you include too few parameters with
the command switches.
5) [I thought I corrected this for the previous version, but there was one
place where I forgot it] The variable M_PI has been replaced with explicit
definitions of pi for those compilers that don't understand what M_PI is.
6) The type 'time_t' has been replaced with just an int, since that all it is
anyway, and since some compilers don't know the type 'time_t'.
Several people have told me that the north node always seem to be off by about
half a degree. I've been looking into this but haven't found the problem yet.
(I've tried using the 'true' north node, the 'mean' north node, etc.) (Wait for
next version.)
Now a list of all the new neat features Astrolog now provides:
(Remember, do 'astrolog -H' to see a brief list of the command switches.)
* Seven new aspects have been included, for those who like obscure aspects!
(Thanks to Mark Martin for giving me the list of their angles and orbs.)
* The '-A' command switch gives a list of all the aspects, their abbreviations
as used in the aspect grids, their angles, and their orbs.
* For those who don't like all these aspects, specifying -A <number> will
limit the number of aspects (e.g. -A 5 will make charts with only the five
major aspects listed in them).
* The aspect orbs have been narrowed for certain bodies like the north node
for which they are expected to be more narrow.
* There's been a very minor change to the aspect grids, which will indicate
whether an aspect is slightly short of exact or slight long of exact.
If the difference is displayed as "3.5" it means the aspect is 3.5 degrees
long of exact; if it's displayed as "3,5", the aspect is 3.5 degrees short.
(i.e. with a comma instead of a period; Yeah, I know that's a hack, but it's
useful in determining whether the exact aspect just happened or is about to
happen. (Note that conjuncts are always '.', and oppositions always ','.)
* Five new house systems have been included which can be specified using the
-c switch. Astrolog now supports 9 different systems total.
* The program now supports directing output to, and reading output from,
data files. The '-o' option will dump all the birth data (the date and
stuff, not the planet positions) to the specified file. The '-i' option will
cast the chart based on the info in the file. (This allows you to put your
birth data into a specific file, and cast your chart whenever you want to
after that without having to reenter your birth data all the time.)
* Display of the chart in a nice wheel format is now supported using the '-w'
switch. (Special error case: If one of the houses gets too 'full' of
planets, the planet will be put at the beginning of the next house.)
* There are now three different formats of chart display available: The
standard listing of planet positions, which you get without any switches;
the aspect/midpoint grid you get with '-g', and the house wheel you get with
'-w'. The -e "everything" option will display the chart in all three of
these formats (Of course the screen will scroll because of all the output).
* Harmonic charts (i.e. where all the planet positions are multiplied by a
factor and the chart recast) are now supported via the '-x' option. (e.g.
-x 3 will make all trines conjunct in the chart displayed.)
* A secondary progression chart for a particular date can be cast using the
'-p <month> <date> <year>' command switch. (Note, I'm not sure if the house
cusps are progressed correctly, but they're reasonably close to what is
properly expected.)
* Computing the relationship between two charts is now supported. Invoke the
program as 'astrolog -r <file_of_person1> <file_of_person2>' and the program
will give you the relationship between the two charts. Normally, and with
the -w switch, the program will display person2's planets in person1's
houses (synastry). With the -g switch, a full grid listing the aspects
between all the planets of the two charts (with person1's planets on the
vertical axis and person2's on the horizontal) is displayed (minus the
vertex, because the screen is too narrow to include it unfortunately.)
Note that transits can be computed with this by comparing your chart with
the positions of the planets at the current moment (-n switch). To make
this easier, you may specify the filename "now" for any file and the
computer will use the current planet positions instead of looking for a like
named file. (e.g. 'astrolog -r me now' will compute transits for file 'me'.)
* The command switch '-t <file>' can be used as a shortcut way to compute
the current transits for the chart in <file>. (Saves you from having to
mention the 'now' in the '-r' option.)
Anyway, some new features that we might find in the *next* version
are: Adding the calculation of aspects occurring within a day and at
what times they are exact (like in Jim Maynard's Celestial Guides),
and some Astro-graph routines (i.e. like Jim Lewis' astro*carto*graphy
charts which list where in the world the planets were angular at the
time of birth.), as well as finally cleaning up the messy code. I hope
to make some more clear documentation on how to use the program
(remember, most command switches can be combined!) I've got many of
the major features one might want in an astrology program down now,
but there's still room for expansion: There's still the X windows
chart bitmaps (Andy Gray has shown me a nice Postscript program to
print charts graphically that he's working on.) Anyway, enjoy the new
version of Astrolog (Compile as before)!
************************************************
Astrolog 1.30 posted Wed, 9 Oct 91 03:17:04 GMT
************************************************
Once again, we have a new version (1.30, i.e. the Fourth posting) of
the Astrolog birthchart calculator ready to be used. The main
highlights are some more minor (and not so minor) bug fixes, as well
as some great new features, like the ability to display the exact
times of aspects in a day or month, astro*carto*graphy, etc.
(Note, I've sent this to talk.religion.newage in addition to just
alt.astrology this time, since not everyone gets the alt.* groups,
even though I'm increasing my chances of getting flamed for posting 2K
line articles... I'm really going to have to start posting this in
segments soon, or figure out how to post to comp.sources.whatever;
however, the file is still under the magic 64K bytes in length.)
First, the bug fixes over version 1.2:
1) The north node is *finally* being computed correctly now. Before it would
always seem to be off by about 1/2 a degree or so.
2) The Part of fortune was calculated 180 degrees off about half the time
before, and this major bug has been fixed.
3) If Daylight Saving time is in affect, the user must subtract 1 from the
time value entered. If the person happened to be born from midnight - 1am,
a negative value would have to be entered. Before it wasn't clear what
value should be entered. In fact now, one should subtract 1 from the
integer of the value, and not the decimal value itself. In other words,
things are processed clearer now in that if the person was born at 12:15am
with DST in affect, they would enter -1.15 (one less than 0.15) instead of
having to subtract from the whole value and enter something like -0.45.
4) (This is more of a new feature than a bug) the program now supports
multiple display switches at once. In other words, the user can invoke with
'-g -w' and get the aspect grid and the wheel chart, while before the
program would only allow one of these to be printed at a time (or else the
user would have to print *everything* using the '-e' switch.)
5) Oh, and some of the code has been cleaned up, although not much. Slowly but
surely, this will become an elegant program :)
A couple of people have emailed me saying that their computer (for
example, Mac's) won't accept command switches on the command line
(like they boot Astrolog from a menu for instance.) Therefore, they
weren't able to access all the features of the program. If this is the
case with your system (or if you just don't like command line
options), then comment out the '#define SWITCHES' line at the
beginning of the code. If you do this, then the program will ignore
any switches and prompt you to enter them manually at the very
beginning of program execution.
Now a list of the new neat features Astrolog provides:
(Remember, it's still 'astrolog -H' to see a list of the command switches.)
* The '-d' option will take the standard chart information, and for the day in
question, display the exact times of all aspects that occur. This is just
like the aspects-per-day as displayed in Jim Maynard's Celestial Guide
books. (Displayed in local time as defined by the specified zone, with
general accuracy of a few minutes.) This will tell the times all planets
make aspects with each other, or change their sign; retrogradation during
the day will be indicated, but the exact time of it won't be listed.
* The '-r' option can now be used to generate composite relationship charts.
Simply invoke it as '-rc <person1> <person2>' instead of just -r and a
composite chart (i.e. composed of the midpoints of the planets, etc of the
two charts in question) will be generated.
* The '-L' option will take the standard chart information and generate the
astrograph positions of the planets. In other words, this does the exact
same thing that Jim Lewis' Astro*Carto*Graphy maps do. It will display the
longitude of where on the Earth at the time in question each object was on
the midheaven and on the nadir, and the latitude of where the planets
actually appeared at zenith. Also, for latitude increments of 5 degrees, the
longitude of where the objects appeared on the ascendant and descendant is
displayed.
* The '-E <month> <year>' option will generate a quick ephemeris for the ten
main bodies for the month in question, useful if you just want to see what's
happening this month in the sky. It generally is used by itself and not with
any other options. (Displayed daily for midnight, GMT time.) Any dots after
a planet location in the list indicate the planet was retrograde at the
time.
* The '-T <file> <month> <year>' option will scan the entire month specified,
and print out any transits that happen, in that month, to the planets as
listed in the specified <file>. (There will be quite a few, even though
fast moving objects like the moon aren't looked at, so you might want to use
this option with the '-A 5' option to limit this to just the major aspects.)
Again, this option is generally is used by itself and not with many others.
(The times are in GMT time, and generally accurate to within a half hour or
so; Try doing it for your birth month and your own chart - All planets
should conjunct their natal positions at about the time of your birth.)
* There are a few other minor things that might affect the program, such as
the fact that by default now, only the major and the 6 main minor aspects
are taken into account, and that one must '-A 18' if they want to get them
all, as well as a few minor display changes, etc.
Anyway, I've got many of the more advanced features in the program
now, so the next version (might) start to have X windows support in
it. (And of course I mentioned that I was working on a more
comprehensive help file, part of which I posted, but alas, I was more
attracted to adding new features!) I've obtained access to a nice
world map which could be included to enchance the astro*graph -L
option to make *real* astro-graph maps! And of course, I still want to
eventually have the option to have nicely drawn X birthcharts appear
on the screen. I've run Andy Gray's postscript version, and although
it's still not finished, it does make good printouts. Anyway, enjoy
this new version 1.30 of Astrolog, which you can compile as before
after removing before and after the "cut here's" with
'cc -O -o astrolog astrolog.c -lm'!
************************************************
Astrolog 1.40 posted Tue, 12 Nov 91 01:18:13 GMT
************************************************
This being the 11th day of the 11th month, I figured that this would
be a good time to post the new updated version (1.40) of our Astrolog
birthchart calculator plus a whole lot more program! There aren't
really any new fundamental features, but there are over a dozen
enhancements (many suggested by its users) which make it's operation
easier and more powerful. (Plus of course we have a chance to
eliminate a couple of pesky bugs.)
The actual code is in a separate article, which should be right after
or nearby this one.
A list of the new features and enhancements Astrolog version 1.40 provides:
1) The ability to restrict the transit (-T) and daily aspect (-d) scans
to just certain bodies has been implemented with the -R switch. Using
-R by itself will prevent the asteroids, Chiron, the Part of Fortune
and the Vertex from being in any of the lists. One may also give a
list of one or more numbers representing planets to be ignored (e.g. 1
= Sun, 2 = Moon, 3 = Mercury, etc) so that a complete custom setup can
be obtained (e.g. -R 1 2 3 4 5 will cause all of the inner planets to
be ignored). More than one -R switch can be combined (e.g. -R -R 16
will cause the asteroids, etc, and the North Node to be ignored; the
first -R gets rid of the asteroids, etc, and the second one deletes
the North Node.) Also, specifying the same particular body more than
once will cause it to be included again, or in other words, -R
<objectnum> complements the status of whether it is to be ignored or
not (e.g. -R -R 15 will cause all of the asteroids, etc, excluding
Vesta, to be ignored; the first -R makes causes the asteroids to be
ignored, and specifying Vesta in the second -R makes it reappear.)
The -R0 option will cause ALL of the bodies to be ignored, which is
useful if you are looking for just the transits/aspects of a few
planets (e.g. -R0 6 7 will cause everything but Juptier and Saturn to
be ignored.) Combining all these methods can cause whatever you are
looking for in transits and aspects to be quickly found without having
to wade through lots of stuff you aren't interested in. (Note: -R will
also affect what bodies appear in the -w wheel chart, too.)
2) The -T <file> <month> <year> transits option has been expanded. Putting
a zero in place of the month will cause the entire year to be scanned,
which prevents one from having to search each month in turn if they are
looking for something in particular. (Useful in combination with -R.)
3) The -T option now includes ALL of one's natal house cusps in the transit
scans instead of just the Asc and MC. The 11th, 12th, 2nd, and 3rd cusps
have been added (and oppositions to these and the Asc/MC can be used to
to determine aspects to the other six cusps.)
4) Normally the -T option always ignores the moon and does not include the
transiting moon in the lists because it moves so fast and would cause an
enormous amount of info. Still, if you are looking for lunar transits,
specifying the option as -T0 instead of just -T will include the moon.
5) The -d option can now search the entire month for aspects between planets
if one so desires. Specifying it as -d0 instead of just -d will go through
the entire month instead of just the current day. (Combining this one with
-R allows searching for important aspects, sign changes, etc.)
6) Both the -T and -d option will display the signs that any planets aspecting
each other are in, in addition to the aspect itself (e.g. instead of just
"Jupiter Tri Uranus", we have "Jupiter (Vir) Tri (Cap) Uranus". If a
particular object is going retrograde, then its sign will be displayed in
brackets instead of parentheses, and if a particular object is about to or
has just gone retrograde or direct, then its sign will be in <>'s.
7) The -E <month> <year> ephemeris option can now be used to display the
ephemeris for the entire year instead of just for one month. Like the -T
option, putting a '0' for the month will give the entire year's ephemeris.
8) The -E option can also display the Asteroids, Chiron, and the Node in the
ephemeris listing if one invokes it as -E0 instead of just -E. Note however
that this will make each line more than 80 columns, so this is mainly just
for printing purposes.
9) The aspects as listed with the -A option are in a more logical order, from
the most major to the least. This makes the -A <num> aspect restriction
switch more useful. (e.g. before -A 2 would restrict analysis to
conjunctions and sextiles, which isn't all that useful; now the same
command will restrict to conjunctions and oppositions.)
A) Note also now that by default only the 5 major aspects are used. If
one wants the minors, they have to do -A 9, and if one want's ALL the
aspects, they must do -A 18.
B) Some header info is printed for the standard chart listing, which includes
the date, time, and location of the chart being displayed, which of course
keeps one from getting a whole bunch of printouts confused with each other.
C) The -f option can be used to "flip" the signs and houses, i.e. display the
house as a sign position and vice versa. For example having the Sun at
26 degrees Scorpio, 2/3 way though the 10th house, will cause the resulting
Sun under the -f option to be at 20 degrees Capricorn, 26/30th the way
through the 8th house. This can be used to determine how far a planet is
through a particular house, as well as for Domal chart analysis that
Mark Kenski has informed me about. Domal analysis is based on the fact that
for synastry comparisons, for example, a planet in Gemini and one in the
3rd house can be considered related in a way similar to a conjunction.
D) The -1 <obj> option can be used to change the houses to force a particular
object to be on the ascendant. This is useful in casting Solar charts or
for when the time of birth is not exactly known. For example -1 2 will
case a normal chart, but the house cusps will be rotated so that the moon
is on the ascendant.
E) The -+ <#ofdays> option will cast a normal chart, but one for #ofdays in
the future (or past if a negative value is given). One use for this is in
combination with the -n and -d options. For instance, I often invoke the
program as "astrolog -n -d" to see the exact times of today's aspects.
However, just before midnight I might want to see what's going to happen
in the following day, so I would do "astrolog -n -d -+ 1" to see the exact
times for tomorrow's aspects.
F) Finally the -q <month> <day> <year> option can be used to cast a quick
chart for 12 noon on a particular date, using the default longitude and
latitude. if TIME is defined the current time zone will be determined and
used, otherwise GMT will be used. Again, one example where this is useful
is with the -d option, e.g. to see the times of exact aspects on a
particular date, like your next birthday, your finals, etc.
Now, a list of bug fixes over version 1.30:
* The midpoint grid displayed in the -g option would cause a coredump if any
of the midpoints lie between 29.5 deg Pisces and 0 deg Aries, and this has
been fixed.
* The -d print aspects in day routine would incorrectly sometimes label a
planet just going direct as just going retrograde, and vice versa. This
has been corrected.
* Attempting to enter a non numeric string when prompted for a numeric value
in the program will cause a bunch of trash to be displayed on the screen.
The program now properly tells you that that's an improper input. (Also,
hitting Ctrl-d at an input will gracefully terminate the program.)
* Although very minor, before there was one place where a function did not
return a value. Although it didn't cause any bugs, some compilers would
complain about this.
* There were a couple of non-computational related typos in the code and the
comments that have been corrected (e.g. before at the beginning, the comment
would tell you to enter the "Longitude N" of your current location before
compiling. This should of course read "Longitude W".)
* Finally, those trying to compile Astrolog on PC's and other smaller
computers said that many of the expressions were too long for their
compiler to handle. Therefore I have cut down some of the longer expressions
into multiple lines and have replaced a few of the macros with actual
function calls.
Expect the X routines to be included in the next version, which will
be split into several program parts, as well as some decent
documentation soon, or at least comprehensive list of all the features.
************************************************
Astrolog 2.00 posted Wed, 11 Dec 91 07:11:25 GMT
************************************************
Tomorrow Uranus transits my Ascendant at 12 degrees 29' Capricorn.
Combine this with my Saturn trining its natal position yesterday, a
nice Aquarius Moon and a Moon Mercury Sextile this evening, and what
would it be a great time to do?
Behold: here is our next version of our Astrolog astrology program!
The main new things this version 2.00 contains are our long awaited
X11 graphics features and the source code now in multiple files.
The program is divided up into 6 source files: astrolog.h, data.c,
formulas.c, options.c, graphics.c, and driver.c. Each of these files
lies in a separate posting of straight source code which should be
after or nearby this one in the list of articles. There is also a
small unix Makefile for the code at the end of this update article. I
chose to post each file separately in this manner, rather than tar
them, uuencode them, zip them, or make a shell archive from them,
because we always have the issue of non-unix people not having access
to or not knowing how how to extract the program.
The main (but not only) thing added to version 2.00 are the X windows
features, which are generally accessed via the new -X switch and
derivatives of it on the command line. There are two different types
of displays: A standard graphic display of a wheel chart in a window
(with glyphs, aspects in the center, etc) and graphic displays of the
Astro-graph charts (which look almost identical to the
astro*carto*graphy maps from Jim Lewis), complete with all the
labeled lines drawn on a map of the world. There are also other
commands that can be given to the window once it is up and running,
which can do other things, such as continually update the window every
few seconds to the current status (i.e. an extended version of the -n
option) as well as other forms of animation. Note that the program is
still text based, and one can easily turn off all the X features by
commenting out the #define X11 in astrolog.h if they don't have X
windows.
A listing and brief description of the command switches for X windows follow:
-X: This is the general switch, which means display a chart in an X
window instead of on the screen in some form. For example, the command
'astrolog -i mychart -X' will open a new window and display the chart
in question in it. (Of course, all the other switches, e.g. -R, -c,
-1, etc, can be used to change what info is actually displayed.)
If you use the -L astro-graph switch in addition to this, the
appropriate astro*carto*graphy map will come up in a window instead
of the earlier boring list of longitudes. (e.g. astrolog -i me -X -L)
-Xb: This switch will cause a standard X11 bitmap file to be produced
instead of putting the graphics in an actual window. This is useful if
you want to convert the graphics to different formats, e.g. so they
can be displayed on PC's, etc. Note that -Xb (or any other -X<letter>
switch) automatically assumes the -X switch above, so 'astrolog -i
file -Xb' is sufficient (and you don't also have to include the -X).
-Xo <file>: Normally, for -Xb above, the program will prompt you for the
name to write the bitmap info to; however, you can explicitly specify
this filename in with the -Xo switch if you don't want to be prompted.
-XB: This switch will cause the chart graphics to be displayed directly on
the root window. This action occurs very quickly since the program
does not have to write a separate bitmap file and call xsetroot -bitmap
on it (although one could easily do this if they want to). For example,
one could put the line 'astrolog -n -XB' in their .xsession file
and whenever they log in, their background will be set to a chart of
the current state of the planets!
-Xr: Normally the charts comes up white on a black background (except on
some workstations in which this seems to be reversed.) Either way, to
get the chart or bitmap displayed in reverse video (black on white),
use the -Xr switch.
-Xw <size> [<size>]: The default window size is 600x600. This can be changed
with the -Xw switch. -Xw with one argument n will make an n by n
window; -Xw with two arguments x and y will make an x by y window with
the chart centered in the middle. Note that this switch will not affect
astro-graph windows; to change the size of these use -Xs below.
-Xs <percentage>: Note that the size of the planet and sign glyphs don't
change when you change the size of the window. This can cause problems
for very small windows where the glyphs overlap the rest of the chart
and for very large windows where there is lots of excess space. The
-Xs switch can be used to change the size of all glyphs. The valid
values that can be passed to it are 100, 200, and 300, where 200 is
the default. Note that this switch is used to change the size of the
astro-graph windows (because the world map is considered to be one
giant glyph by the program.)
-XW: Believe it or not, I painstakingly entered the data for the world map
used by the program by hand using an Atlas during a long week. If you
just want to see the map of the world by itself without any
astro-graph lines on it, use the -XW switch.
-XG [degree]: Once we have the data for the map of the world, there are
several neat things we can do with it; for instance, with a little
trigonometry and clipping, we can bring up a view of a globe, which
is what the -XG switch does. An optional argument will specify a
rotation value in degrees to display different parts of the globe.
(The globe seems to look best for a -Xw window size of around 350.)
The X wheel charts have their graphic information organized as
follows: There's an outer circle showing the signs and sign glyphs,
inside of which is a smaller circle divided up into 5 degree
increments to make determining exact degrees easier. Inside of this is
a circle divided up into the 12 houses labeled with numbers. The
entire chart is divided by two dashed lines through the Ascendant/
Descendant (which is always horizontal of course) and the
Midheaven/Nadir. Inside the house circle are the planet glyphs in
their appropriate positions. Small pointer lines run from each glyph
to just before single dots. These dots indicate the precise locations
in the zodiac of each object. The pointer lines (which are dashed if
the object is retrograde and solid otherwise) are necessary so as not
to have to draw planet glyphs on top of one another when planets are
conjunct. Inside the ring of the single dots, are the aspect lines
connecting these positions. Since the default number of aspects to use
is just the 5 majors, one can determine which aspect is in place just
by looking at the aspect line. The accuracy of the aspect is
determined by the dashedness of the line: A solid line means the orb
is < 2 degrees; a dashed line means the orb is < 4 degrees; a really
dashed line mean the orb is < 6 degrees, etc.
The X astro-graph charts are organized as follows: A map of the world
is shown. The edges of the map are labeled with ruler lines that are 5
degrees apart (with longer ruler lines for more important longitudes
and latitudes, like those that are multiples of 10, 30, etc.) The
equator is labeled with a dashed line. The polar regions of the world
aren't shown; the map shown ranges from 60 degrees S latitude to 75
degrees N latitude. Note that each pixel on the screen represents
exactly one half a degree on the world. (For -Xs 100 the ratio is one
pixel to one degree, and for -Xs 300 the ratio is one pixel to 1/3
degree.) On this map are drawn the lines indicating where on the world
the various planets are angular at the time in question. (Note: you
might want to -R restrict some objects because otherwise the map tends
to get pretty cluttered with lines.) As expected, Midheaven and Nadir
lines are vertical, and the Ascendant and Descendant lines are curved.
Little square boxes on the Midheaven lines indicate the exact zenith
latitude location. Each line is labeled at the top or the bottom of
the screen, showing what planet is in question and (sometimes) what
angle is in question. All Ascendant and Midheaven lines are labeled
at the bottom of the screen, and all Descendant and Nadir lines are
labeled at the top. Each line goes a bit beyond to the top or bottom
of the world map, and then another pointer segment (which is again
dashed of the object in question is retrograde) goes and points to the
planet glyph. There is a capital "A" or "M" under each of the glyphs
at the bottom of the screen, explicitly indicating whether the line is
an Ascendant or Midheaven line. At the top of the screen, however,
there are only the glyphs, but one can still determine whether these
lines are Descendant or Nadir lines based on whether they are curved
or not. Note that not all the Descendant lines are labeled; this is
because some of the Ascendant/Descendant lines actually connect near
the top of the screen and don't actually cross it.
Once the X window in question actually comes up, one can press certain
keys within the window to do certain actions. A list of these follows:
'H': The most important key. Pressing this will display a help list of
all the key presses available in the text screen from which
the window was invoked from.
'q': Pressing this key will terminate the window (and the Astrolog
program itself.)
'p': Press this to pause all updates to the window. This is mainly used
to freeze any animation (see below) but also has an effect even
on 'still' windows. In pause mode, the window won't be updated at
all, e.g. moving another window on top of the Astrolog window and
then off again or iconifying will leave the Astrolog one blank. Key
presses will still be accepted in pause mode but their effects won't
be apparent until one presses 'p' again to continue. The fewer X
windows calls in pause mode will make Astrolog use less CPU time.
'x': Pressing this will invert the colors in the window, or in other
words will do the same thing as the -Xr switch on the command line.
'T': Normally, there is no actual text printed in the windows. However,
one can bring up header information listing the date, time, and
location of the chart in question. Pressing the 'T' key will toggle
the display of the header text at the bottom of the chart on and off.
'S': One can manually resize the Astrolog windows using a window
manager (except when a world map is displayed, in which case resizing
will have no effect). Pressing the 'S' key will resize any (non-world
map) window to be a square. This is useful, after resizing charts
to approximately the size you want, to make them precise squares.
'<' and '>': This two keys will respectively decrease and increase the
size of the sign and planet glyphs (as well as resize the astro-graph
charts) through the three scale factors available. After resizing
the window you will probably want to use these keys if the glyphs are
now too big or small for the new chart.
'C', 'L', 'W', 'G': There are basically four main modes in which a window
can be in: There are the main charts (wheel and astro-graph) as well
as the two world displays (the simple map by itself and the globe
view). These four keys can be used to switch between these four
modes in the middle of program execution. For example, you can bring
up your own chart in a window, then press 'L' to see the astro-graph
chart for the same birth data. Then you can press 'W' to just see the
world map by itself, and 'G' to see the globe view, after which you
can press 'C' to return to your original wheel chart.
'N': Animation! This key will toggle in and out of a mode where the chart
is continually updated in the window. Entering the animation mode
will cause the chart being currently displayed to be replaced by the
chart for the exact moment at the time you are running the program.
Every second or two, the chart will be updated to reflect the new
current state of the planets and houses. For large window sizes, one
can actually see very minor changes in the chart every few seconds.
With the text 'T' mode in effect, the chart is basically an advanced
version of xclock, and makes a good window to be left running on
your display. If you are in the -XG globe display mode, pressing
the 'N' key will cause the globe to rotate for an impressive display!
'!', '@', '#', '$', '%', '^', '&', '*', and '(': These nine keys (i.e.
shift plus the number keys from 1..9) enter into a different form
of chart animation. Pressing them will cause the current chart
being displayed (i.e. it will not revert to the current planet
positions) to continually have a delta time added to it and be
recast and shown. Pressing '!' will have one second added to
the chart for every update (slow action unless you have a very
fast system - the animation will be even slower than for the 'N'
key). Pressing '@' will have one minute added to the chart each
time, which makes for a nice display (note that you will definitely
want to be in the text 'T' mode for these animations so you can see
what times in the future these charts are being cast for. Pressing
'#" will have one hour added each time (note that now the house
cusps are starting to move quickly, so you may want to switch to
a different system of houses (such as the Equal to keep the
Midheaven from flopping back and forth) and/or use -1 to put an
object like the sun on the Ascendant.) Pressing '$' will have one
day added each time (now you will probably want to start using
-R to remove fast moving objects like the moon), and pressing
'%' will have one month added for each update of the window.
The final keys, shift 6..9 cause years, decades, centuries, and
millenia to be added each time, and tend to only be used to
look for long range actions (when will Neptune next enter Pisces,
etc.) To exit this animation mode, press the 'N' key.
'r': Press this to reverse the direction of any animation taking
place. For the '!'..'(' animation keys above, this will cause
negative times to be added to the chart, e.g. pressing '#'
then 'r' on a chart cast for noon will cause the next chart to
be displayed for 11am, then 10am, etc. For the Globe animation,
this will cause the rotation to reverse direction.
'1'..'9': The nine number keys are used to set the relative "rate" of
animation to "n" whatevers. For example, normally the "@" key means
add one minute to the chart for each update, but press "5" and now
we are adding 5 minutes each time. For the Globe animation,
by default the Earth rotates one degree each time; however, the
number keys can speed this up to nine degrees for each update.
There have been a couple of changes made to the program, i.e. not just
new features but some things in version 1.40 are no longer valid:
* Before, the program tried to actually use internal system calls in the
time library to determine whether DST was in effect or not. Since this
didn't seem to be accurate at all times, and also many people's systems
didn't have the needed gm_tmoff field, I have done away with it and
have replaced it with a DEFAULT_ZONE constant set at compile time.
* Now that we have a particular default time zone assumed, the transit (-T)
times are displayed in the local zone instead of in GMT, the ephemeris
(-E) list is displayed daily at midnight local time instead of GMT, and
the quick (-q) chart is always displayed for noon default time, too.
* The -T transits and -d aspects in day are now displayed in am/pm
time instead of the 24 hour cloak. There have also been a few
spacing and alignment changes to make these times easier to read.
In addition to the X enhancements, there have been a few more features added:
1) I often use Astrolog to look at and compare files containing charts of
various people. I have many chart files, so I keep them in a separate
directory. Since it was always a pain to have to cd into this special
directory all the time, I have added a DEFAULT_DIR string to be set at
compile time. Now, whenever the program reads in a chart file with the
-i option, it will first look in the current directory for it. If it's
not found there, Astrolog will then look for a file of the same name in
the special default directory.
2) Additional information has been added to the standard list of the planet
positions displayed. Planets in their exalted and debilitated signs
are noted. In addition to the (R) indicating a planet in it's ruling sign,
and an (F) for a planet in it's fall, we have (e) if a planet is in its
exalting sign, and a (d) for a planet in its debilitating sign (which is
always opposite the exaltation, as how the fall is opposite the ruler).
3) In addition, the total number of planets in each of the hemispheres
of the wheel, as well the number of objects in positive/masculine and
negative/feminine quality signs, are counted. To the right of the element
table, we have a column of six numbers labeled as follows: "+" is the
number of "positive" objects (i.e. in Fire or Air signs); "-" is the number
of "negative" objects (i.e. in Water or Earth signs); "M" is the number
of objects above the horizon (i.e. in the hemisphere of the Midheaven);
"N" is the number of objects below the horizon (in the hemisphere of the
Nadir); "A" is the number of objects in the Eastern half of the sky
(in the hemisphere of the Ascendant); and "D" is the number of objects in
the Western half of the sky (in the hemisphere of the Descendant).
4) The -A option when used by itself will now list the number of each aspect
in addition to all the other info already there (e.g. conjunct = 1,
opposite = 2, etc.) This is so one can easily figure out what exact
number to pass to the -A option when changing the number of aspects used.
5) Similar to the -A option, the new -O option will list all the planets
and other celestial objects used by the program, and their numbers as
recognized by the -R restrictions. This list will also show the zodiac
signs that planets rule, fall in, are exalted in, and debilitated in.
6) The -z <value> option can be used to change the default time zone to
the value in question. For example, you can force the -E ephemeris and
-T transits to be displayed at midnight GMT time instead of the local
time with -z 0; or, for the East coast where by default the time zone
is "5", you can do -z 4 during DST to properly display transits,
aspects in day, and other lists in the local DST zone.
7) A "new" system of houses has been added: No houses at all, or in other
words the Ascendant will always be 0 degrees Aries, the Nadir 0 degrees
Cancer, etc. Access this by passing the value 9 to the -c option.
This system is useful for the extended chart animations as described
above where having houses at all can tend to get in the way, and one can
even observe the precession of the equinoxes with this system if used
in conjunction with the -s siderial chart option.
Now, a list of bug fixes over version 1.40:
* A major bug would cause the input from any eastern longitude (or time
zone) or southern latitude to produce results slightly off the
expected values. Fixes on how to correct this were posted soon after
the release of version 1.40, and they are now included in the code, so
there should be no more problems. The reason why such a large bug got
in there in the first place (which *wasn't* in versions 1.00-1.20) was
that I inadvertently introduced it when I was correcting the earlier
(now fixed) bug which would produce incorrect results whenever the user
had to enter negative values for the time, e.g. DST was in effect and
they were born between midnight and 1am (meaning they enter 0.xx -
1.00 for DST = -1.xx). Both bugs are fixed now and my apologies for
the hasty debugging which got it in there in the first place.
* The moon and north node would always produce zodiac positions for the
standard zodiac, even if the user specified the -s option. The -s
option will now yield the proper siderial positions for these two
objects.
* Some have commented that there are time zones 13 hours before or after
GMT, and that the old version would only accept values from -12 to +12.
The legal time zone offsets accepted by the program have been expanded
to include these areas.
* Too much round off in the chart headers displayed for a chart would
force all time zones offsets to be integers, and this has been fixed to
properly display non-integer zones. Also, another display glitch would
occasionally display the person as being born one hour after their true
birth time. Both of these were only display errors and didn't affect
the actual results computed.
* A couple of array sizes in the code have been increased to account for
the fact that some compilers will only reserve n elements for the array
type name[n], i.e. space is *not* reserved for the index name[n], which
would introduce glitches in results for some systems before.
* The -q "quick" chart option wasn't mentioned in the -H help list of all
the options before, and it is now.
* Not really a bug, but I neglected to mention in the list of new features
for version 1.40 that the -1 "put on Ascendant option", if not given any
object number after it, will by default assume you mean the sun, and will
cast a normal chart except that the house cusps will be rotated in order
to put the sun on the Ascendant.
Anyway, that about sums up Astrolog version 2.00. I confess that this
is my first major X window programming job, and that combined with
splitting the code could produce problems on other systems, so there
might be some needed changes to be made in the code soon. Still,
hopefully each code segment is small enough to be compilable on small
systems. Anyway, there probably will be a version 2.10 in the future:
I would like to include some new features like list the latitude
crossings for the astro-graph maps, and I've only really begun to
explore the graphics possibilities with the charts (like I could print
out the aspects grid and locations with the charts, etc). There are
also a couple of other programmers who have expressed interest in
merging their own creations with Astrolog: for example, Postscript
routines (BTW, you can use the xdpr(1) command on certain systems to
print out the contents of an X window), interpretation databases, etc.
As far as Astrolog and computers go, the future in our own minds has
as many possibilities as the future in the stars! :)
To compile version 2.00, first edit the top of the file astrolog.h,
putting in your own appropriate values for the default longitude,
latitude, time zone, and default directory. Also comment out any of
the #defines which set various features that aren't valid on your
system, such as the X11, TIME, and SWITCHES variables. Then, for unix
systems, run the command 'make' on the Makefile (or you can always
compile by hand: "cc -O -c *.c; cc -o astrolog *.o -lm -lX11" will do
it; just make sure to compile each source file and link them together
at the end with the math and X11 libraries.)
************************************************
Astrolog 2.10 posted Tue, 18 Feb 92 07:59:03 GMT
************************************************
As I post this, we are having the Full Moon in Leo/Aquarius. Identity,
represented by the Sun, is in the sign of computers, unconventional
science, and contribution to humanity; opposite the Moon in the sign
of self-expression. The opposition is occurring in the last degree of
these two signs, building up to the entry into the signs of analysis
and self-transcendence. Therefore, guess what it's a good time for?
Behold: the next version (2.10) of our Astrolog astrology program! It
has been over two months since the last version, however some of the
many new features should make it worth the wait. Some of these
included are: X windows in Color, several new X window chart displays,
lots more progression and aspect support, ability to do transits to
composite and other charts, latitude crossings for astro-carto-
graphy, and other things, along with our standard batch of bug fixes.
As before, there are 6 source files: astrolog.h, data.c, formulas.c,
options.c, graphics.c, and driver.c. Each of these files should be in
a separate posting of straight C source code after or nearby this one
in the list of articles. There a small unix Makefile for the program
at the end of this update article. Again, I am posting each file
separately in this manner, rather than using shar, tar, zip, etc,
because we always have the issue of non-unix people not having access
to or not knowing how how to extract the program. Note however, that
very soon I am going to finally post Astrolog to a formal source group
(comp.sources.misc) as a standard shell archive for us unix junkies,
so it should be available at a 24 hour ftp site soon.
--
Here is a complete list of new features now in Astrolog over version 2.00,
listed in rough order from the most significant to least significant:
A) Color X windows is probably the main new feature added to Astrolog
2.10. The charts displayed in color are *much* more eye catching than
the old B/W ones, IMHO. Here is how the colors have been assigned for
the normal wheel and astro-graph charts: Four colors have been
allocated for the four elements - Fire = Red, Earth = Brown, Air =
Green, Water = Blue. The various sign glyphs (and the corresponding
house labels) are in the color of their element. Planets are in the
color of the sign of their main ruler. Chiron and the four asteroids
are Gold, while the north node, and other non-physical objects like
the fortune and vertex are Violet. Representations of the Ascendant/
Descendant/ Midheaven/ Nadir (in the astro-graph map lines and
elsewhere) are in the element color of the corresponding sign/house
that the angular lines refer to, i.e. Ascendant = Red, Midheaven =
Brown, Descendant = Green, Nadir = Blue. A few extra things have been
added for color wheel charts only: dark gray lines marking off each
house (in addition to the main lines on the horizon and meridian), and
each degree instead of every 5th degree being marked in dark gray on
the outer circle (every 5th degree being white). Aspects lines are
colored too, as follows: Conjunctions = Yellow, Sextiles = Light Blue,
Squares = Red, Trines = Green, Oppositions = Dark Blue. For the minor
aspects we have: Inconjuncts/Semisextiles = Brown, Semisquares/
Sesquiquadratures = Orange, (Bi/Semi)Quintiles = Violet,
(Bi/Tri)Septiles = Gold, (Bi/Quatro)Noviles = Pink.
B) For color X systems, the new -Xm switch will create all windows in
monochrome B/W mode, as they were in 2.00. In addition, pressing the
'm' key within a window will toggle in and out of monochrone mode on
color systems.
C) Aspect grid windows with the appropriate aspect glyphs can be
displayed by combining the -g option with the -X option (astrolog -g
-X). Both the split aspect/midpoint grids labeled down the diagonal,
as well as the relationship aspect grids between two charts (astrolog
-r <file1> <file2> -g) are supported. The aspects glyphs, objects, and
the signs in the grids are in their colors as defined earlier. Like
the astro-graph windows, these charts can't be resized in the normal
way unless one uses the '>' and '<' keys. For anything less than the
largest scale size (achieved with the switch -Xs 300, or by pressing
'>' within a window) all that will be displayed in each aspect grid
cell is the glyphs of the aspect in effect, the planet being aspected,
or the sign of the midpoint. However, once the largest scale size is
reached, there is room in each cell to display the aspect orb to the
nearest minute off of exact (with a plus or minus sign indicating
whether the actual angle is slightly greater than or less than exact);
the degree and minute in addition to the sign for midpoints; and the
degree and sign location for each planet that's in the grid.
Remember, the ASCII aspect grids in earlier versions were rather
limited, only displaying orbs to the nearest 0.1 degree, midpoints to
the nearest degree, as well as the confusing '.' vs. ',' for angles
slightly greater or less than exact (not to mention leaving the vertex
out for the relationship grids between two charts). Well no longer: we
can now see *real* aspect grids with Astrolog!
D) The -A display aspects option has been extended to display a brief
verbal description of what each aspect glyph look like. This is in
case one doesn't know what aspects the weird symbols in the -g -X
displays are referring to.
E) A new text display switch has been included, -Z, which prints out