History of Changes to "The Digital Universe" (current version 1.03)
Please note - The "DigitalUniverseNoIntro" file is just a link to the
"DigitalUniverse" executable, required to provide an additional
icon to run the software without the introduction. If the
"DigitalUniverse" executable is not deleted before copying the
new version on top of it, "DigitalUniverseNoIntro" should be
automagically updated as well. If not, just delete
DigitalUniverseNoIntro and type:
MakeLink from DigitalUniverseNoIntro to DigitalUniverse
at a shell prompt.
Changes since version 1.02:
Bug fixes
- Sidereal time was being calculated from Dynamical Time, and not
Universal time as it should have been. This meant that sidereal
time was off by the value of Delta T. Thus, though the positions
of objects with respect to the background stars was perfectly
accurate, their positions with respect to the local horizon were
slightly off. As a result, rise and set times were off by the
value of Delta T. Since Delta T is currently only about a minute,
this bug had gone unnoticed. However 2000 years ago, the
difference was almost 3 hours. Thanks to Ray Cole for reporting
the problem.
- On some monitors, the shade of blue used to represent the Right
Ascension and Declination grid was too dark. It has been lightened
up to make it easier to see.
- If a planet was clicked on while it was being rendered with
features, garbage was rendered after the info window appeared. This
has now been fixed.
Changes since version 1.01:
Since one of the changes involves a user preferences
file, the format of this file has had to change. You cannot use
your old Digital Universe preferences, and MUST re-initialize the
file to default values before using the software. To do this,
open up a shell and type:
DigitalUniverse init
You will then have to open the Environment Preferences and
Display/Object Preferences windows to adjust for your preferred
settings.
New features
- Now, numerical reports can be output to the screen as well as
the printer, or saved to disk.
- A few useful keyboard shortcuts dealing with time were added:
- 'a' - toggles to automatic time advancement
- 'm' - toggles to manual time advancement
- 't' - sets "The Digital Universe" to use the current time
- 10 more user-settable fields of view were added, bringing the total
to 20. The first ten are used by pressing a number key (above
the 'qwerty' keyboard). The last ten are used by holding down the
SHIFT key while doing so. Since the preferences file format had to
change as a result of this modification, you'll have to re-initialize
the file when running "The Digital Universe" for the first time
after upgrading. Type "DigitalUniverse init" at a shell prompt
to do this.
- The string gadget in "Find Star", "Find Galaxy", and "Search
Hypertext" is automatically activated when their respective windows
are opened.
Bug fixes
- MUI 2.3 and 3.1 have problems in dealing with >V34 amigaguide.library
(it can only deal with a single amigaguide file, and "The Digital
Universe" requires 9 separate files). To get around this problem,
"The Digital Universe" pre-loads V34 amigaguide.library, regardless
of the version of amigaguide.library normally used on your system. This
works fine, but has one small problem - V34 amigaguide.library
was never meant to deal with screens having more than 32 colors, and
caused the system to crash if a hypertext window was brought up on
such a screen. The interim solution is to restrict screen depths to
32 colors, and this modification was made to V1.02. Of course, when
a future version of MUI and amigaguide.library >V34 are happy with one
another, we'll be removing the temporary restriction.
- If you'd accidentally deleted your Mode_Names icon from your WBStartup
drawer, your Amiga would not know the names for different screen modes.
"The Digital Universe" previously never anticipated this scenario, and
crashed if it couldn't find any valid screen mode names. V1.02 has
fixed this problem, providing the system with a <Default mode> screen
even if there is not a valid name for it. This stops the program from
crashing, but of course the best solution is to restore the Mode_Names
icon from your original Workbench disks.
- Western Australia Daylight Time and Western Australia Standard Time
offsets were wrong. They've been fixed from their previous values of
+8 and +7 respectively to the correct values of +9 and +8.
- Animations generated on overscanned screens with WB3.1 would sometimes
be corrupted. We believe we've found and fixed the problem (special
thanks to Chris Gray for his incredible patience in helping us track
it down).
Changes since version 1.00:
New features
- In the Display/Object preferences window, a new option entitled
"Show Titlebar" is now available. If the user disables this
gadget, the title bar at the top of the screen is removed, and menu
options are only visible while the right mouse button is held
down.
- If the user wishes to view the effects of proper motion and has
the software set up to draw constellation figures, the figures will
change shape as the stars move around. Note that this change
invalidates the second paragraph under "Constellation Figures" on
page 3-24 of the user manual.
Bug fixes
- Three minor Enforcer hits which occurred during the introduction
sequence have been eliminated.
- After the introduction sequence, the audio filter is turned back
on. It was previously left off.
Go back to The Digital Universe support page.