TABLE ANALYSIS version 1.2 (January 1999) Program for analysing, editing, printing and storing astronomical tables in the Ptolemaic tradition (C) Benno van Dalen Institut fuer Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften P.O. Box 111932 (FB 13) 60054 Frankfurt am Main GERMANY =============================================================================== Millennium Bug: the only date related operations performed by TA are the setting of the date-and-time stamp on files which are written to disk (files with extension .ZIJ containing tables in TA format and ASCII files of various types), which is done by directly calling the DOS routines (interrupts) concerned, and the reading of such stamps for display in lists of files. Therefore, TA can be considered to be millennium proof. Disclaimer: The author of TA disclaims liability for any errors that may be present in the program and for any damage that may ensue from its use. =============================================================================== CHANGES BETWEEN VERSIONS 1.19 (MARCH 1998) AND 1.2 (JANUARY 1999): 1) Changes in the input of strings, sexagesimals, integers and types: If there is a default value (e.g., the previous name of a table when you select MOdify, option Name), it is now always shown in a different colour. In order to edit the default, first type BACKSPACE, LEFT ARROW, RIGHT ARROW, HOME or END. The colour of the input will then change to the "ordinary" one. If you type a letter or digit straight away, the default will disappear and that letter or digit considered to be the first character of the new input. 2) When editing a string, you may now strike INSERT to change between insert and overwrite mode. 3) Changes in the input or modification of sexagesimal numbers: - When editing a tabular value, you may now jump from digit to digit by striking the CTRL-LEFT ARROW and CTRL-RIGHT ARROW keys. - An undefined value no more needs to be set back to zero by pressing * or U. Instead you may pretend that it is already equal to zero and type HOME, LEFT, +, -, or any digit to edit it straight away (note the effect of ALT-0!). - When editing tabular values, ALT-C will make the manuscript value equal to the corrected one, whereas ALT-M makes the corrected value equal to the manuscript one. 4) New command SE (Scribal Errors): displays the differences between the manuscript version and corrected version of the given table. 5) New command LB (List zijes in Branch): lists the external zijes in all subdirectories of the given directory. 6) New command VW (VieW): prints the manuscript and corrected values of a single table in a standard format. This saves a number of specifications which would be necessary in PR (PRint). 7) New command CV: copies a range of tabular values from one table into another. The values to be copied need to have the same arguments in the source and the destination table. This command facilitates, for instance, putting together two halves of a single table which were entered separately. 8) Command MO (Modify), option F (First argument) was extended in such a way that it now also allows removal or addition of tabular values instead of just a change of the starting point of the range of the arguments. For instance, using this option you can add values for arguments -90 to 0 to a table which originally ran from 1 to 90, or you may delete the values for arguments 1 to 45. Note that the added tabular values will automatically be set to 0. Option T (Type) of MOdify is now aborted if ESCAPE is hit for any of the parameter values to be entered after changing the type of a table. Thus the type will remain unchanged if the parameters are not at least set to undefined by pressing * or U. 9) An option P (Parameters) was added to the command IP (Input Table). It allows the user to specify the parameters directly in cases where they can be assumed to be known, instead of having them estimated from one or more tabular values (option C). Note that while editing predicted tabular values with either of the input options C (Calculate) or P (Parameters), you may change the parameters used for the prediction by pressing P. Similarly, you may now at all times change the input mode to first or second order tabular Differences by pressing D, to input by Hand by typing H, or to input from another Table by striking T. This may be useful when the input mode you have originally chosen turns out not to be very convenient, in particular when it produces predicted tabular values which are very different from the actual values in your source. Finally, you may type S to toggle the use of symmetry properties for the prediction of tabular values on and off. This may be useful if the table you enter turns out not to have the symmetry properties of the standard form of the type that you assigned it. 10) In the command PRint, the option "print to a TeX file" was renamed to "print to a LaTeX file" (abbreviation L). Furthermore, the format of the file produced by this option was modernized to use LaTeX2e instead of 2.09, and various details of the layout were adjusted. 11) The following types of tables were added: LEAF Lunar Equation of Anomaly diFferences EAI / MEAI Equation of Anomaly Increments / idem for Mercury EAD / MEAD Equation of Anomaly Decrements / idem for Mercury EAF / MEAF Equation of Anomaly diFferences / idem for Mercury These stand for the differences between the Equations of Anomaly at Apogee and Perigee and the central Equation of Anomaly, as specified on the TYPE help screens (obtained by striking ? at the input prompt for a type). Note that these types can only be assigned to a table to identify the tabulated function; no calculation or estimation is possible yet. Instead of analysing tables of these types directly, it is generally recommended to reconstruct the underlying EAP / EAA tables and analyse those instead. 12) The context sensitive Help system (invoked by pressing F1 at any time) was updated for all commands and features added since version 1.1 (1994). 13) Various small bugs were corrected. These include, for instance, one in the procedure for entering strings which allowed the string to be broken over two lines and then occasionally caused a crash, in particular in the command Rename Zij. ============================================================================= CHANGES BETWEEN VERSIONS 1.1 (MARCH 1994) AND 1.19 (MARCH 1998): 1) Change from Borland TurboPascal version 5 to version 7. This implies that with the present test version of TA you need the graphics driver files (with extension .BGI) of TurboPascal 7, which are included in the zip file. 2) Addition of a command AP (APparatus), not yet included in the context-sensitive help system, which produces a simple apparatus in a TeX file. A base table and up to five variant tables can be specified. The base table will be printed with notes for all deviations in the variant tables; a numbered list of all variants follows the main table. 3) To the command IP (InterPolation) an option was added for second order interpolation according to a method which was found with al-Khazin and was described by Kennedy and Hamadanizadeh for various tables in Islamic sources. For instance, tabular values for arguments 11 to 19 will be calculated on the basis of those for arguments 9, 10 and 20 (that for argument 9 stemming from a previous step in the interpolation). The current implementation of al-Khazin's type of interpolation is neither very convenient nor bug-free. I hope to write a better version in the future. 4) Some types of tables have been corrected / redefined. These include, in particular, types related to the latitudes of the inferior planets. In TA version 1.19 the following types are available (in each case LIP stands for Latitude of the Inferior Planets): LIPD = Deviation LIPI = Inclination LIPS = Slant LIPP = Interpolation function The type TSLD (True Solar Longitude as a function of the Days) was added for almanac type of tables. Its underlying parameters are the daily mean solar motion, the solar eccentricity, and the "solar apogee" (which is measured from the beginning of the day count and hence is actually a combination of the solar apogee and a kind of epoch constant). For all latitude functions and the new type TSLD the least squares estimations have been added or improved. 5) Instead of 5 tables, PR (PRint) can now handle 6 tables at once.