If you already have read this document previously there is now an updated section at the end.

Public Statement regarding Astrocalc Status of Today

By former owner Colin Miles and current owner Joakim Schramm
done on June 13 2008

The past year has been a very difficult one for Astrocalc and Joakim Schramm, who took over the running of Astrocalc from me, as he was diagnosed with what could have been a life-threatening illness. Fortunately, further tests in April this year have revealed that this is not the case. Different people respond to this kind of situation in different ways. In Joakim's case he chose not to reveal anything until he got the good news. Unfortunately, trying to keep going for such a long time in such a situation is extremely difficult and except for most of the normal day-to-day work on Astrocalc, little else has been done - no new web site or new version of the program.

Whilst no great promises can be made, Joakim is now working on a Windows Vista-compatible version and this, together with an updated web site, may be available by September.  In the meantime please address all your queries and orders as usual to support@astrocalc.com

Although I am no longer involved in any development work, or in the day-to-day running of Astrocalc, I am able to help a little with queries if Joakim is unable to deal with them because of illness or is otherwise unavailable. And finally I would like to thank all Astrocalc customers for their support over the years and hope that before too long we will once again be in a position to further develop our programs. There is still an awful lot that could be done to make computer programs like Astrocalc yet more useful to Astrologers.

Colin Miles
Astrocalc Founder and previous owner

I would like to amend Colin’s statement with a clarification that the current state of Astrocalc hasn’t emerged only because of my failing health, but in fact also my computers have had a rather unhealthy year – with several hardware crashes and other software problem. And it’s more or less “the sum of it all” that has resulted in “nothing coming out”, regarding my personal problems as well as software releases or a new website.

As for my current health state, I am now basically fine, apart from lacking some strength and a full day’s clarity so to speak - but it gets better for each day. I really don’t have a problem to speak about what I been through but I find it rather irrelevant to do so, now as well as in the past year. The truth is that I been as much in the dark as you about what was going on. As I see it, now and in he past, making a public talk trying to explain the circumstances, the ins and outs etc. wouldn’t cause anything but unnecessary worries and uncertainties about the future of Astrocalc.

Of course, in a situation like this some suffering and damage is unavoidable, on all ends, and I am the first to be sorry for the situation we have now and I fully understand if you as a customer and user have doubts. I have strong faith though in what I am doing, in Astrocalc and the future. I am aware of myself being in a rather unique position, having knowledge and skills both in astrology and computers not limited just to programming. I know that one day this will pay off and I am determinate to get there.

Anyhow, to sum up the current situation… apart from a functional web site, our current program line mainly has a problem with Windows Vista.

The old versions however, the ones numbered 5.6 or less and using a code system will mostly work on Vista. However, the code you are given will need to be input every time you start the program. This is due to the Vista UAC and virtualisation (security) system, which allow for older incompatible programs to run in a virtual layer over the “real” file system and registry. However, this layer is created each time the program is run. Hence no permanent saving of data in system regions is possible, like your activation code. 

For the current versions 6 line, the situation is worse. Due to a component it uses - which cannot work in this virtual environment, and being disallowed access to the real file system and registry by Vista - it cannot run at all. Work is in progress to solve this but it will still take some time. The problem is analysed and solved on the drawing board, remains though to do the necessary code changes which also involves a reorganization of how the program is installed. On Vista you can’t simply install a program to one single place unless it’s a very simple one and Astrocalc hardly fall into that category.

Your follow up question then, of course, is when this is going to happen? Well, at this stage I refrain from giving any promises. Actually I am going away tomorrow for a months, on a semi-holiday to Sweden, and won’t be back until mid July. However, I will bring my notebook with me (and that’s the semi part) and solely work on the code and hopefully it will be near to ready for my test bench when I am back. Then it all depends on what “pops up” between the bytes, it can take 2 weeks but also 2 months or quoting the professional developers favourite answer on this question – it’s ready when it’s ready as there is no point in releasing something that doesn’t work as intended.

While I am away, I will have sporadic access to internet and my mail and will try my best to give support, but be patient and always send your email to support@astrocalc.com as these emails also reaches Colin who kindly have offered to help when he can. However, as usual in summer times it all comes down to the wheatear and the strawberries, we have to enjoy it while it last. Well that’s it folks.

Information Update

I am now back from holidays and fit for fight again! During my vacation I was able to complete all the planned work relating to Vista and testing is just about to start. With some luck I should have a functional version at beginning of August

In such case I will need a few volunteers to make some public testing on Vista before the public release. Actually, anyone willing to test on XP as well is welcome but in both cases you must already own a version of Astrocalc (not necessarily installed). If you are interested, please send an email request to beta@astrocalc.com and identify yourself.

As for this coming beta version the following apply; It is not intended to replace your current installed version of Astrocalc. Any such action is taken on your own risk. However, in the case with Vista this is not a potential problem as it in any case will install independently of any previous version installable on this OS.

You can expect it to be safe to install and run on your computer, however the program as such may have issues and hence not working 100% correctly all the time. The whole purpose though of this version is to find any such issues and correct them before the final public release.

There is no guaranty that charts, settings etc. that been saved will be reusable for the final release. We do our best to maintain compatibility though.

Joakim Schramm
Astrocalc owner

Last updated: 15 July 2008