Amiga Times/AmigaTimes.iso/demos/programme/DigitalUniverse/ProductInfo

Text File | 1998-10-06 | 14.1 KB | 358 lines

                       "THE DIGITAL UNIVERSE"
               Astronomy Software for the Amiga Computer
                             1998/04/13


PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
-------------------
"The Digital Universe" is a complete astronomy program for the amateur
or professional observer.  It combines the advantages of traditional
"planetarium" programs with a massive hypertext multimedia encyclopedia
to create an effective tool which assists the user in observing and
learning about the heavens.  50,000 lines of code, more than 700 pages
of hypertext, and thousands of man-hours have gone into this product to
make it the most complete program of its class.  The software would not
have been possible without the generous assistance of countless
individuals from the Canadian Space Agency, the National Research
Council of Canada, NASA, JPL, NORAD, the European Space Agency, the
Bureau des Longitudes, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the
Russian Academy of Sciences, and several other organizations worldwide.


PRODUCT FEATURES
----------------
The following features by no means summarize all the things which
the software is capable of.  Due to space considerations, only the
major features can be summarized here.

- The following databases are integrated into the software:
    1.  Yale Bright Star (YBS) Catalogue of 9110 stars.
    2.  Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) Catalogue of over
        250,000 stars.
    3.  Messier's Catalogue of 110 deep sky objects (galaxies,
        nebulae, and clusters).
    4.  Sky & Telescope's NGC 2000.0 Catalogue of 13,226 deep sky
        objects.
    5.  Tom Lorenzin's "1000+" database of observing comments for
        over 2000 objects.
    6.  Jost Jahn's comet database containing 2298 cometary orbits.
    7.  Jost Jahn's minor planet database containing orbital
        information for thousands of asteroids.
    8.  Ted Molczan's and T. S. Kelso's orbital information for
        approximately 900 Earth-orbiting satellites.

- The software can generate accurate views of the night sky for any date
  from 100,000 BC to 100,000 AD.

- The package includes over 700 pages of hypertext, including an
  introduction to astronomy, dictionary of terms, biographies of famous
  people, celestial object descriptions, and summaries of every
  interplanetary spacecraft launched to date.

- More than 250 pictures are linked into the hypertext encyclopedia.
  They include images of all the planets, most of their satellites, all
  of the Messier objects, some NGC objects, and many miscellaneous
  images.  A few audio clips are incorporated as well.

- A context-sensitive help system, linked into the online encyclopedia,
  is integrated into the software.

- The user can select whether or not they want to consider effects such
  as precession, proper motion, nutation, aberration, or refraction.

- "The Digital Universe" uses the latest analytic theories of motion for
  the planets (VSOP87) and their satellites, resulting in typical
  accuracies of better than 1 arcsecond (1/3600th of a degree).

- The current analytic theory of motion for the moon (ELP2000-85) has
  been extended to improve its accuracy even further for times within
  a few hundred years of the present.  The extension was done specifically
  for "The Digital Universe".

- NORAD's SGP4 model of orbital motion is used to accurately predict
  the apparent positions and movement of Earth-orbiting satellites.
  "The Digital Universe" can work with standard "2-line" orbit files.
  Hundreds of satellites are included with the software, and information
  is provided to explain how to obtain future data sets as new
  satellites are launched and older orbits decay.

- Unlike many other astronomy programs which only consider the four
  brightest satellites of Jupiter, "The Digital Universe" accurately
  computes orbits for the moons of:
     Earth:   Our Moon
     Mars:    Phobos and Deimos
     Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Amalthea, and Thebe
     Saturn:  Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion,
              Iapetus, Phoebe, Telesto, Calypso, and Helene
     Uranus:  Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon
     Neptune: Triton and Nereid
     Pluto:   Charon
  When the software is zoomed in sufficiently to the planet of
  interest, the moons are rendered in their proper positions.

- When zoomed in to most planets and satellites, the object's
  orientation and phase is determined and a latitude/longitude grid
  superimposed if the user desires.  Maps of Venus, the Moon, Mars,
  Jupiter, and Saturn are incorporated into the software to generate
  accurate renditions of the appearance of these objects.  The ring
  systems of Saturn and Uranus are rendered.

- Supports the Amiga preferences printer.  Plots of star charts, etc.
  are far more than a simple screen dump.  The maximum resolution of
  the printer is used for outstanding clarity.

- The user can enter his or her own horizon, if desired.  Horizons for
  multiple observing sites can be configured.

- The user can select their location from a list of over 1000 cities,
  or enter their latitude, longitude, and altitude above sea level
  manually if higher accuracy is desired.

- Completely configurable IFF animations can be generated.  To mention
  just two examples from the infinite number of possibilities, you
  can see how stars move and constellations distort over centuries, or
  view how Saturn's rings change their orientation and appearance over
  time.  "The Digital Universe" can also save screen snapshots as ILBMs.

- A report generation feature lets you choose between a wide variety
  of data and customize tabular reports.  They may either be printed
  or saved to disk.

- Provided that you have sufficient chip memory, the screen upon which
  "The Digital Universe" runs can be of any size.  If the screen is
  larger that can fit on the monitor, you can scroll around simply by
  moving your mouse to the edge of the visible area.  A screenmode
  requester is provided to allow users to specify their particular
  monitor.

- All development was done entirely on Amiga.  It is not a port from
  the IBM or Macintosh world.  As a result, the software closely
  adheres to the Amiga style guidelines and behaves in the manner you
  would expect from Amiga software.


SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
-------------------
The software will run on any Amiga with Workbench 2.04 or greater, at
least 3 megabytes of memory, and a minimum of 11 megabytes of hard drive
space (17 megabytes of hard drive space is required for a full
installation).  Due to the extremely calculation-intensive nature of
this software, an accelerated Amiga and math chip (FPU) is strongly
recommended, though not required.

In addition, the software is now being distributed on CD, so a CD-ROM
drive is also required.



CD-ROM DISTRIBUTION
-------------------
The original distribution of "The Digital Universe" consisted of 14
floppy disks and a printed user manual, all enclosed within a
binder.  Since more and more Amiga owners now have CD-ROM drives, we
have decided that a CD distribution of "The Digital Universe" is now
more practical than it would have been a few years ago.

In addition, the entire printed user manual is available online as
a context-sensitive help system.  We had many comments from
individuals who said that with the online help and the general
user-friendly nature of the package, they have never needed to
consult the printed manual.

With these factors in mind, and to keep costs down, the new
CD-ROM distribution consists of single shrink wrapped CD-R, with
no printed documentation, box, or user manual.  Online
documentation is provided to explain how to install the software,
start the program, and access the online help.  For most people,
this is all that is required.  The result is a complete astronomy
simulation package available for much less cost than has ever
been available before.

The software and databases included on the CD are the complete
functional version of Digital Universe V1.03 that was being
shipped on floppy disk until now.  For this reason, existing
owners of the original V1.03 distribution have no reason to
upgrade to the new CD distribution.


PRICE OF THE SOFTWARE
---------------------
With the original floppy-based distribution of "Digital Universe",
we had a complicated price structure reflecting the widely
varying costs of shipping the package around the world.  The
new CD distribution is much smaller and lighter, and thus
shipping charges do not vary as much.  Therefore, we are happy
to be able to offer a single price of $75 Canadian for the
package, which includes shipment via air mail to anywhere in the
world.

The lower cost of shipping means that international customers
will be able to obtain "The Digital Universe" for even less
than half of its original cost.

As a rough guideline, you can use the following table to
estimate the equivalent cost in your own currency.  The amounts
quoted below were obtained from the interbank rates on April
11, 1998 based on $75 Canadian, and will naturally fluctuate:

United States: 52.62 USD
Germany:       95.84 DEM
UK:            31.44 GBP
France:       321.53 FRF
Switzerland:   79.62 CHF
Italy:         94860 ITL
Finland:      291.20 FIM
Sweden:       414.06 SEK
Australia:     79.82 AUD

Canadian residents must add 7% GST.


BULK ORDERS
-----------
Groups interested in obtaining more than 5 copies of the
software may be interested in our bulk purchase plan.  As
long as we can send all copies in one batch to a single
address, you can obtain an additional $10 Canadian discount
per copy, resulting in a total cost of $65 each.


REFERRAL PROGRAM
----------------
In an effort to reward those "Digital Universe" owners who
help to promote our software, we'd like to announce our
referral program.  If you are a registered owner of "Digital
Universe", tell someone about our software, and they
consequently purchase V1.03 of DU on CDROM from us, we'll
give you a $10 discount on your upgrade to V2.0 if and when
it is released.  You can accumulate discounts for each
referral made, up to the point at which you get a free upgrade.
Note that this must be a "personal" referral (ie: just linking
to our web page won't count), and that the person ordering the
package must provide us with your name when letting us know
where they heard about "The Digital Universe".


HOW DO I GET A COPY OF V1.03 ON CDROM?
--------------------------------------
If you would like to purchase a copy of Digital Universe, you
can do so either directly from us or from one of our
distributors.  If you want to contact a distributor, let us
know your location and we'll be able to tell you who might be
able to get a copy to you the quickest.  Keep in mind that all
prices quoted in this messages are our "suggested retail prices"
and that distributors may sell for more or less.

We are also always on the lookout for new distributors of "The
Digital Universe".  If you think you may be interested in
distributing our software in your region, give us a rough
estimate of the volume you might expect to deal with and we'll
send you out more information about our requirements of
distributors and the benefits you'll receive.  Please note
that we do not accept exclusive distributorship arrangements.

If you'd like to order your copy of the V1.03 CD directly from
us online via credit card with our secure server, just follow
the "Ordering via credit card" link on our web page at
http://www.syz.com/DU/amigacd.html

Alternately, fill out the following information, and send it
to us at any of our contact addresses (provided at the end
of this document).  Payment can be made by check (drawn in
Canadian dollars, US dollars, or British pounds), money
order, Visa, or Mastercard.




                  DIGITAL UNIVERSE ORDER FORM

If you are planning on a bulk purchase of 5 or more copies
deliverable to the same address, please contact us for the
details we require.  Otherwise, please provide us with the
following information.


This form assumes that you are interested in purchasing a single
copy of "The Digital Universe" on CD, priced at $75 in
Canadian funds.

If you are paying by credit card, please provide the following
information.  If not, please send the required remittance as
we are unable to process COD orders.  If you are sending your
order via email to [e-mail], we recommend that you encrypt
your message using our PGP public key (provided at the end of
this document) to protect the security of your credit card
information.

Credit Card Type (Visa or Mastercard)_________________________________

Credit Card Number _______________________________

 Cardholder's Name _______________________________

       Expiry Date _______________________________

Signature (if mailed) ____________________________


We also require your name and address for the registration, as well as
your shipping address (if different):

Registration Address             Shipping Address (if different)

____________________________     _______________________________

____________________________     _______________________________

____________________________     _______________________________

____________________________     _______________________________

____________________________     _______________________________


email contact address (if any): ________________________________


Where did you hear about Digital Universe?______________________

CONTACT ADDRESSES
-----------------
If you would like to order "The Digital Universe" or have further
questions about the software, please contact us at:

   Before June 26, 1998
   --------------------
   Syzygy Research & Technology Ltd.
   B 1204-17a St. N.E.
   Calgary, AB
   T2E 4V5
   Canada

   Phone: [phone]
   email: [e-mail]
   WWW:   http://www.syz.com/DU/amigacd.html


   After June 26, 1998
   -------------------
   Syzygy Research & Technology Ltd.
   Box 83
   Legal, AB
   T0G 1L0
   Canada

   Phone: [phone]
   email: [e-mail]
   WWW:   http://www.syz.com/DU/amigacd.html

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