Distant Suns

In the 1980s a program came out for my beloved Amiga that was a serious package for amateur astronomers. Mike Smithwick’s Distant Suns offered an interactive galaxy and close-ups of interesting objects. Before the Amiga stumbled into oblivion, the program was ported to Windows where incantation 6.0 lives today.

More recently, last fall Distant Suns was ported to Apple’s fabulously successful iPhone/iPod Touch duo. If you own one of these little pocket marvels, a copy will cost you just under $4 US at the Apps Store. If you use Windows 95 through XP (or run the various emulations that bring the charms of Windows to the Mac) you can buy a desktop version on-line from the author. Check out www.distantsuns.com (or the App Store) for more information.

NB. Pardon my tone on Windows, my daughter was over yesterday with her Vista laptop which has been struggling since the Microsoft patch fiasco on June 6th. She was trying to write a paper. Since the “security auto update” mentioned, many keystrokes in Word, including a space, have a slight delay that throws off even a mediocre typist like me. I had to keep her away from (glass) windows for the well-being of her laptop and the safety of beings outdoors.