REVISION HISTORY

ARGUS 3.1 revision changes

FOR EXISTING USERS

You may judge your need for upgrading by inspecting the list below, what has been changed over time since your version. You do not need to further back than your existing revision which you can find in the programs about-box.

Most of the changes are in the XLI interpreter adding new codes and fixing old ones, which is interesting only for XLI programmers.

Revision 27:

A bug in the Kündig section calculation, when the option for "Bonatti" sections are selected, would often produce an "invalid floating point error". The reason for this error is not obvious, so the cure, even if it seems to work is no guarantee.

Revision 26:

A better cleanup is now done at program exit. It sometimes happened, that you got a "general protection fault", which now should not happen
When entering registration info, pressing the APPLY button will now finish and close the info-box (if data is accepted).
You may now have radix house numbers in progressed and other printsouts as was the case in the DOS version, by setting CONFX 10 bit 0 to1
You may now avoid the progressed Moon printout in progressed charts by setting CONFX 10 bit 1 to1

Revision 25:

You may switch off the automatic save-window-size state at program exit by setting the first character in PCA.CFG line 14 to S
Fixed a bug in the continental part of fortune
Fixed a bug in the Solar-Arc planet speeds

Revision 24:

Fixed wrong MCs in the Kundig section printout at high latitudes
Fixed spurious word-wrapping errors in interpretation printouts
Fixed XLI-printtab error conflict with monospaced and embedded tab characters

Revision 23:

WINDOWING

Earlier revisions always started maximized (full screen). This has been changed to start the same state as last session. The size and placement of the main window is saved in PCA.CFG line 14. The placement of the namefile and input menu is changed, so that they are easier to overview when then main window is small.

YEAR 2000 AND TIMEZONE FILES

Argus always operated with a 4-digit year entry, so it should still work after year 2000. If you enter only 2 digits, you will get a 19XX year, so you should make youself a habit of entering years with four digits. The timezone tables are only up to year 2000 inclusive. Entering a year from 2001 onwards earlier produced a warning message, that daylight saving time is no longer automatic. This has now been changed, so that Argus will extrapolate the existing daylight saving tables, assuming that the DST/non-DST switching schedule stays the same (e.g. last sunday in oct at 3.am or whatever). Keep in mind, that this assumption may not be true if governments at some point decide for somehting different. An assumed DST or not DST will be notified in the input menu with parenthesis: (DST) or ().

The files GEO.DLL and TZONE.DLL are now obsolete, their function is included in PCA.EXE.

XLI-INSTALL

XLI-Module installation use a .DEF file for specifying the single files, directories etc. Earlier revisions needed a file called TXT.DEF, which meant, that any disk\directory could hold only one module or set of files. Now any file with the extension .DEF will work. Therefore you may give it the same name as the module. For example a module called NSTAR.XLI, maybe with a chain of files called NSTAR1.XLI, NSTAR2.XLI etc. you could call your DEF file NSTAR.DEF. When the user installs from a CD-ROM or a big directory of modules, his filemenu will show NSTAR.DEF FORECAST.DEF, RAINBOW.DEF etc, which is easy to choose from.

The installation filemenu also accepts extension .EXE. If an .EXE file is chosen, this EXE will be executed in its own directory and receive the Argus directory as commandline parameter. So this EXE file could for example be a complete installer program or a ZIP self-extractor. However this will not insert any titles in the XLI- or interpretation menu selector.

COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS

Earlier versions accepted macros as commandline parameters, e.g. PCA RAV to make PCA auto-execute the macro RAV. Now you may also place an XLI filename for instance PCA EPHGEN , and PCA will execute the file EPHGEN.XLI if present. You may omit path and extension of the xli file in which case the PCA home path and the .XLI extension are assumed. You may also add a macro after the xli file, for example PCA EPHGEN RAVQ which makes PCA run first EPHGEN then the macro RAV and terminate PCA (Q) when done.

BUGS FIXED

ARGUS FONT and WINDOWS 98

Argus always used its own symbol font, which earlier was installed to windows, so that it could be used from other applications as well. There has been two versions of this font around: The first version, which had Chiron at position 128. This did not work with windows98, because chr(128) was then reserved for the EURO currency symbol. So the second Argus font had Chiron at position 144 as well, and a special XLI module: CHIRON98.XLI could make Argus use position 144 instead.

With revision 23, you get a new version of this font, but it is not automatically installed to windows. It has Chiron at pos 128 and 144, and the sextile symbol, which ealier was a 5-spoke star has been fixed.

If you want the new sextile or need the Windows98 problem fixed:

  1. Open the Windows Control Panel | Fonts, and remove the ARGUS font. PCA will then use the one placed in its own subdirectory. If you want to use this font in other applications as well, install the PCA.TTF which is now placed in the Argus home directory, using the Windows Control Panel.
  2. When this is done, start Argus, and then open the XLI menu and call the module CHIRON98 once. You should now have Chiron correctly displayed.

 

EARLIER REVISION CHANGES

Most of the changes are in the XLI interpreter adding new codes and fixing old ones, which is interesting only for XLI programmers. The other changes made are listed below

Revision 22

Revision 21 changes (dec 1998)

Revision 20 changes (may 1998)

Revision 19 changes (jan 1998)

Revision 18 changes (dec 1997)

Revision 17 changes (nov 1997)

Revision 16 changes (nov 97)

Revision 15 changes (oct 1997)

Revision 14 changes (sep 97)

Revision 13 changes (sep 97)

Revision 12 changes (sep 97)

Revision 11 changes (aug 97)

Revision 10 changes (July 97)

Revision 9 changes

Revision 8 changes (may 97)

Revision 7 changes

Revision 6 changes

Revision 5 changes

Revision 4 changes

Revision 3 changes

Revision 2 changes