FastRS V02.13 (17 Mar 96)
Copyright © 1993-96 by William K. Walker
"Fundware" from North
Valley Digital. (FastRS runs under MS-DOS. A Windows version is
"pending.")
FastRS produces a listing of the sunrise/sunset times for the Bahá'í Fast. It needs to know your location name, latitude, longitude, year and time zone (EST = 5, PST = 8, etc.). Here is an example for Kalispell, Montana, USA:
Location: Kalispell, MT
Latitude: 48 11 45 N
Longitude: 114 18 47 W
Time Zone: 7
Year: 1995
FastRS will create a file named FASTyyy.LST ("yyy" is the Bahá'í year) containing the sunrise/sunset table. In the example above, the file would be named FAST151.LST.
If you want times in 24-hour format, type FASTRS /24.
See the program documentation for more details.
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FastRS Program Documentation (also included in the FastRS distribution):
Overview and Introduction
Installation
Running the Program
Money
Credits
Author! Author!
Tech Notes and Other Goodies
F A S T R S
A program to calculate sunrise and sunset for the Bahá'í Fast
Copyright (c) 1993 - 96 by William K. Walker
V02.13, 17 March 1996
Overview and Introduction
=========================
FASTRS is a fairly simple program that calculates sunrise and sunset
times for the period of the Bahá'í Fast. Once you have entered the
necessary information, FASTRS writes the sunrise/sunset table to a file.
At that point, you can print it out or you can use your favorite text
editor or viewer to browse it.
FASTRS asks for the following information in order to calculate sunrise
and sunset for your location:
o a location description,
o the local latitude and longitude,
o the year and
o the time zone.
The location description is just that: a short description of the
location for which you are calculating the sunrise and sunset times.
(Example: Kalispell, MT)
Latitude and longitude are the map coordinates that tell FASTRS where
you are on the globe. Latitude describes your distance from the Equator.
You must enter four pieces of information to specify your latitude:
degrees, minutes, seconds and direction (north or south) from the
Equator. Longitude works like latitude, except it tells FASTRS how far
you are to the east or west of the Prime Meridian, a north-south line
running through the Greenwich Observatory in London, England. So,
longitude is also entered as degrees, minutes and seconds, but the
direction is either east or west. For example, my home in Kalispell, MT
is north of the Equator and west of London, so its latitude and
longitude look like this when I enter them into the FASTRS program:
48 11 45 N
114 18 47 W
See the "Tech Notes" section for suggestions on how to find your local
map coordinates.
The year can be entered as the 4-digit Julian year or the 3-digit Bahá'í
year. In either case, the range is limited to a 100-year span from
1980/136BE through 2080/236BE. Thus, if you wanted sunrise and sunset
times for 1995, you would enter either 1995 or 151.
The time zone is the number of hours that need to be added to your local
time to convert it to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). GMT is also known as
Universal Coordinated Time. In either case, it means the time at the
Greenwich Observatory in London. For example, if you live in the United
States Mountain Standard Time Zone (MST), you must add 7 hours to your
local time to convert it to GMT. Thus, you would enter 7 when FASTRS
asks for the time zone. If you live on the West Coast, you would add 8
hours; if you live in Darwin, Australia, you would subtract 9.5 hours
(i.e., you would enter -9.5); and so forth.
Once you've figured all this stuff out and given it to the program,
FASTRS will produce an output file named FASTyyy.LST. The "yyy" part is
the Bahá'í year. If you entered 1995 (or 151) as the year, the file
would be named FAST151.LST.
Top or Table of Contents
Installation
============
If You Received FASTRS On Diskette
----------------------------------
The easiest way to install FASTRS is to create a directory for it and
dump all the program files into it. If you received FASTRS on diskette,
something like the following commands ought to do the trick (assuming C
is your hard drive and A is your diskette):
md c:\fastrs
copy a:\*.* c:\fastrs\*.*
If You Downloaded FASTRS From Another Computer
----------------------------------------------
First, create a directory for the FASTRS distribution files, then copy
the FASTRS archive file into the directory you just created and expand
the archive. If the archive is "self-extracting" (FAST21.EXE or
FASTRS21.EXE), the command sequence should look something like this
(assuming your hard drive is drive C):
md c:\fastrs
copy fastrs21.exe c:\fastrs\*.*
cd c:\fastrs
fastrs21
Once this is done, you may delete the original archive file if you wish.
If the BBS repackaged the FASTRS files into a different type of archive
file, you may need to run a separate archiving program to retrieve the
files. In this case, the archive will be named something like
FASTRS21.ZIP or FASTRS21.ARC. The command sequence to create a directory
and retrieve the files is very similar to the example above. Here is a
typical set of commands for a ZIP archive:
md c:\fastrs
copy fastrs21.zip c:\fastrs\*.*
cd c:\fastrs
pkunzip fastrs21
Once this is done, you may delete the original archive file if you wish.
Top or Table of Contents
Running the Program
===================
To run FASTRS, switch to the directory containing it, and type the
program's name. For example:
cd c:\fastrs
fastrs
Or, if you want the times to come out in 24-hour format (e.g., 18:00
instead of 6:00PM), type
fastrs /24
and answer the prompts. The information FASTRS needs is described in the
"Introduction and Overview" section above.
Here's what a program run looks like for my place in Kalispell, Montana:
FASTRS V02.13 -- Calculates sunrise/sunset for Bahá'í Fast
Type FASTRS ? for help.
Location: Kalispell, MT
Latitude: 48 11 45 N
Longitude: 114 18 47 W
Year: 151
Time Zone: 7
Working...
Writing sunrise/sunset times to FAST151.LST...
Note: It could take a while for FASTRS to compute all the sunrise/sunset
times. It finishes almost instantly on my big development system, but it
takes about 20 seconds on the old AT clone in the other room. (For you
propeller-heads out there, the "slow" machine is a 10MHz 80286; the fast
one is a 120Mhz 80486.) Beta tester Mark Foster reported 24 seconds on
his AT-class machine.
Anyway, once FASTRS is done, it writes the sunrise/sunset times to a
table in a file. In the example above, the file is named FAST151.LST. At
this point, I could print it out by typing
copy fast151.lst prn
Top or Table of Contents
Here's what the printout would look like:
FASTRS V02.13 Copyright (c) 1993-96 by William K. Walker
Location: Kalispell, MT
Latitude: 48° 11' 45.00" N
Longitude: 114° 18' 47.00" W
Time Zone: GMT-7
Sunrise/Sunset Times, Bahá'í Fast -- 151BE (1995)
`Alá March Sunrise Sunset
---- ----- ------- ------
1 Thu 2 7:17AM 6:23PM
2 Fri 3 7:15AM 6:24PM
3 Sat 4 7:13AM 6:26PM
4 Sun 5 7:11AM 6:27PM
5 Mon 6 7:09AM 6:29PM
6 Tue 7 7:07AM 6:30PM
7 Wed 8 7:05AM 6:32PM
8 Thu 9 7:03AM 6:33PM
9 Fri 10 7:01AM 6:35PM
10 Sat 11 6:59AM 6:36PM
11 Sun 12 6:57AM 6:38PM
12 Mon 13 6:55AM 6:39PM
13 Tue 14 6:53AM 6:41PM
14 Wed 15 6:51AM 6:42PM
15 Thu 16 6:49AM 6:44PM
16 Fri 17 6:47AM 6:45PM
17 Sat 18 6:45AM 6:47PM
18 Sun 19 6:43AM 6:48PM
19 Mon 20 6:41AM 6:50PM
Top or Table of Contents
Money
=====
This software is (ahem) "fundware." If you find it useful, send a
contribution to one of the Bahá'í Funds when you get a chance, or add a
little to your normal contribution. I don't care which fund gets the
money, or how much you send -- your judgment is as good as mine,
possibly better. Also, it would really make my day if you send me a note
telling me that this program has generated a little extra revenue for
the Faith.
Non-Bahá'ís should note that the Bahá'í Faith does not accept
contributions from non-members. If you are not a Bahá'í and you insist
on sending some money to someone, send it to Hospice -- they are good
folks, and they can use it.
Top or Table of Contents
Credits
=======
The nasty math that does the sun elevation and azimuth calculations was
written originally by Bob Walraven in January, 1985. It was part of a
FORTRAN program named FRESNO.
Significant "sanity-check" and field test assistance was contributed by
Mark A. Foster, Olathe, KS. Nice guy that he is, he made some time for
me in the midst of grading final exams. A round of applause, please, for
the gentleman in the front row.
Thanks are due, also, to my wife, Lois, who reviewed the documentation
and made several helpful suggestions, including the addition of a day-
of-the-week column to the listing.
Top or Table of Contents
Author! Author!
===============
Bug reports and suggestions should be sent to the author:
William K. Walker
North Valley Digital
390 S. Tyndall Pkwy, Ste 149
Parker, FL 32404
+1 (850) 647-9614 (voice)
+1 (850) 647-9615 (fax)
wkwalker@nvdi.com
http://www.nvdi.com/
Top or Table of Contents
Tech Notes And Other Goodies
============================
This section contains all the stuff you don't absolutely need to know to
run FASTRS. Nevertheless, you may find some interesting goodies here. It
wouldn't hurt to at least scan the topics in case something catches your
eye.
How To Find Your Latitude And Longitude
---------------------------------------
In the first place, you don't need to be exact to the nearest fraction
of a second. Getting the degrees and minutes part more-or-less correct
will probably be good enough. Actually, the nearest 1/4 degree (15
minutes) will do the trick.
If you live in the United States, The Old Farmer's Almanac is a useful
reference. Their "Time Correction Tables" list the geographic
coordinates of over 250 U.S. cities.
If you have a regular, commercial airport nearby, you might try calling
the weather people there. They should know their global coordinates.
Sometimes the weather person at one of the local TV stations will know
this sort of thing, too.
A library is another good place to look. So are colleges and
universities. If they have any detailed maps on file -- topographic maps
are best -- you can often use them to obtain your longitude and
latitude. A good atlas might also provide the necessary information.
Or, send me a note and I'll pull your coordinates from my database.
Entering Decimal Degrees
------------------------
Sometimes it's easier to figure coordinates as decimal degrees instead
of degrees, minutes and seconds. This is especially true when you are
taking measurements from a map. If, for example, you wish to use 81.4
degrees west instead of 84 degrees, 24 minutes, 0 seconds west, you can
do so. When you run FASTRS, just enter the minutes and seconds as 0.
E.g., 81.4 0 0 W instead of 81 24 0 W.
Using I/O Redirection
---------------------
You can use a trick called I/O redirection to feed pre-typed responses
to FASTRS from a data file. For instance, the FASTRS distribution
includes a file called KALISPEL.DAT which can be used to reproduce the
example listing shown earlier in this document. To do this, you would
type
fastrs <kalispel.dat
The "<" tells MS-DOS to provide input to FASTRS from KALISPEL.DAT
instead of from the keyboard.
Just to show how things work, I've included data files for a few other
places, too. Also, once you have figured out your local coordinates and
time zone, you can create your own data file. Just use any plain text
editor such as the MS-DOS EDIT or (yech!) EDLIN program to create a file
containing the responses you would normally type when you run FASTRS.
You can use the data files I supplied as a model. When it's time to run
FASTRS next year, all you need to do is change the year entry in your
data file and you're ready to go.
If you don't have a decent text editor, I have included a very simple
one called TED (Tiny EDitor) as part of the FASTRS distribution. TED's
documentation is in TED.TXT.
Command Line Switches
---------------------
FASTRS recognizes two command line switches: /24 and ?.
The "/24" switch causes the sunrise/sunset times to be output in 24-hour
format instead of "AM/PM style." Actually, you can enter "/24" or "24"
or (if you are undergoing UNIX withdrawal) "-24" and FASTRS will accept
it.
Entering "?" or any invalid command line character produces the program
name, program release date and version, the copyright notice, and a
short block of help text.
Using The TZ Environment Variable
---------------------------------
A lot of people don't know this, but there is an MS-DOS environment
variable called "TZ" that can be used to tell programs about your time
zone. The command syntax looks like this:
set TZ=SSShh:mm:ssDDD
where
SSS is the three-letter designation for standard
time in your time zone (example, MST);
hh:mm:ss is the amount of time to add to your local
time to get Greenwich Mean Time (GMT -- see
the discussion in the "Overview" section)
expressed as hours, minutes and seconds; and
DDD is the designation for daylight savings time,
if your area uses it (example: MDT).
Thus, if you lived in the U.S. Mountain Time Zone and your area used
daylight savings time part of the year, you would enter:
set TZ=MST7MDT
If you added the above line to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, TZ would get set
each time you booted your computer.
FASTRS understands TZ. If, when you run FASTRS, you just press the Enter
key when you see the "TimeZone:" prompt, FASTRS will check to see if the
TZ variable is set. If it is, FASTRS will use the information supplied
by TZ; if not, FASTRS will insist that you type in your zone
information.
One nice side-effect: FASTRS will use TZ's three-letter time zone
designation. Thus, if you set TZ to "MST7MDT" before running the
"KALISPEL" example earlier in this document, and if you just press Enter
when FASTRS asks for the time zone, the listing will show the time zone
as "MST" instead of "GMT-7."
Sunrise/Sunset Calculation
--------------------------
Sunrise and sunset are calculated as the time when the edge of the sun
just appears or disappears, given the normal index of atmospheric
refraction. This is 2 or 3 minutes before or after the sun actually
clears the horizon, because the atmosphere bends the sun's light
slightly.
In case you were wondering why the last two or three days of the Fast
are more than 12 hours long, now you know. The atmosphere, acting like a
lens, lets us peek just a little bit beyond the horizon. (It seems
poetically appropriate, doesn't it?)
Although FASTRS gives pretty good results anywhere on the globe, I did
not attempt to make the output meaningful for locations extremely close
to the poles. I.e., I did not make a distinction between "sun visible
all day" and "sun not visible all day"; I just flag sunrise and sunset
as "none."
Distribution Files
------------------
ted.com - a simple text editor
kalispel.dat - Kalispell, MT data file
wilmette.dat - Wilmette, IL data
haifa.dat - Haifa, Israel data
file_id.diz - program description for BBS uploads
fastrs.exe - the FASTRS program
fastrs.ico - Windows icon for FASTRS
fastrs.pif - Windows Program Information File for FASTRS
fastrs.txt - FASTRS documentation
files.txt - list of distribution files
readme.txt - quick start "read me" file
ted.txt - TED editor documentation
Portability Notes
-----------------
If you wish to adapt FASTRS to other environments, get in touch with me.
I will make the sources available to anyone with a specific project in
mind although I would prefer not to hand them out to the idly curious.
FASTRS is written in C. The code should be reasonably portable. I kept
away from pointless trickiness, avoiding the constant temptation to
generate "elegant" code at the expense of clarity.
The program should be ANSI C compatible, or very close to it.
FASTRS does use a few 8-bit characters to generate things like the
degree symbol and the accents in the word "Bahá'í". These are defined in
FASTRS.H and would, of course, need to be modified for output to non-IBM
style displays and printers.
You will probably need to remove the "#pragma page()" statements if you
are not working with the Microsoft C compiler.
The TZCHEK routine is Microsoft-specific. It should be customized for
your target system, or modified always to return a zero value.
Edit History
------------
1991 - Various early versions written in FORTRAN and C
Nov 1993
14 Dec 93 Y02.00 First V02.00 public beta test
W. K. Walker
15 Dec 93 Y02.00a Second V02.00 beta; modified to support TZ
W. K. Walker environment variable; added support for non-
integer time zone offsets; updated doc
16 Dec 93 V02.00 Official public release
W. K. Walker
10 Mar 94 V02.10 Added day-of-week column to listing
W. K. Walker
17 Aug 95 V02.11 Updated to reflect new address; fixed TZ
W. K. Walker handling bug
23 Feb 96 V02.12 Minor documentation updates
W. K. Walker
17 Mar 96 V02.13 Fixed erroneous release date in source code;
W. K. Walker doc updates
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Maintained by William K. Walker
Copyright © 1996-1999 by William K. Walker
Last update: 2 Mar 1999