About

Posted by admin

Years and years ago, somewhere in the middle of 1985, I got a great idea for a little astronomy program for my new Commodore Amiga 1000. I prototyped it first as a 22 line basic program, and the proceded to spend the next two decades “polishing it up a little.”

It has won the hearts of many users, and I still get email from time to time saying that Distant Suns was someone’s favorite program when they were in a) High School b) on their honeymoon, c) in prison.

After deciding that it was time to put the little bugger out to pasture along came this iPhone thing and I realized that this was the platform I’ve been waiting for all along, as I had always wanted to carry the universe around in my shirt pocket. So I dusted off the code and launched into the latest incarnation of Distant Suns. I have already received some emails from some long time fans thanking me for keeping it going.

And I hope it will make some new fans and friends along the way.

Permalink | November 8th, 2009

11 Responses to “About”

  1. Reinhard Budras Says:
    January 24th, 2010 at 3:51 pm

    Hello Admin(?)

    I am looking for a windows version of distant suns.
    Still have the Version 1.2 from 24-Feb-92
    Isn’t there a update availible ?

    Reinhard

  2. Bob Measures Says:
    April 7th, 2010 at 10:06 am

    Distant Suns was the program that showed shoes if you ‘looked’ straight down, was it not. If so, why arent they in the iPhone version. :)

  3. proxima Says:
    April 8th, 2010 at 12:20 am

    That was actually in the Commodore 64 program, SkyTravel. Although just use the augmented reality feature and yo can see your own shoes when looking down.

  4. Andrew S Says:
    April 30th, 2010 at 1:24 pm

    Once I lugged a “lunchbox” computer, big CRT and a 20 lb. lead-acid UPS into a field in the middle of the night to run DS. Very pleased to see the iPad version – vastly improved, generally awesome, and a lot lighter.

  5. proxima Says:
    April 30th, 2010 at 10:33 pm

    It has been my joy to save your back! I would lug my Amiga 1000 outside every once in a while out into the “field” (once to the roof of a physics building!).

  6. Evelyn J Herron Says:
    May 16th, 2010 at 3:08 pm

    Why do you talk of the Amiga 1000? I ran DS on an Amiga 3000 and an Amiga 4000, and loved the program. Especially loved running time animations, watching the constellations and planets move across the sky. I now use it with an Amiga emulation running on Windows XP. Also have DS on my iTouch. Still love the program.

  7. proxima Says:
    May 16th, 2010 at 4:32 pm

    I mentioned the A1000 because that was the machine I wrote the first couple of versions on. Eventually I moved to an A3000, with a whopping 60Meg harddrive! Still have it.

    Always nice to see the Amiga-oids!

  8. Stuart Says:
    May 17th, 2010 at 8:40 am

    Hi, distant suns on the iPad is the most beautiful superb astro program that I have seen and used. Words are not sufficient.

    I have looked but cannot find this feature anywhere. As you have the list of messier objects available and in view, is there way way to have the names of the messier objects in the display as well as the star names. I am sure there will be but I must be just missing where that is turned on?
    Kind regards and thank you for a most excellent program in every way,
    Stuart.

  9. 4 reasons I’m excited about the SF AppShow : Dale Larson Says:
    May 23rd, 2010 at 10:31 am

    [...] friend is presenting: Mike Smithwick. He started writing Distant Suns for the Amiga in 1985, and I first met him during my days as an Amiga engineer. More than 25 years [...]

  10. Bruce Says:
    August 12th, 2010 at 8:28 am

    I have been a registerd user of your program since Virtual Reality Labs days. I like the simplicity of the early versions. I am now a WINDOWS MOBIL 6.5 user- HTC Phone and would like to install. Suggestions Please?

  11. proxima Says:
    August 12th, 2010 at 11:04 pm

    So sorry, but no version planned for WinMo, or at least the pre-7 iteration of the OS. And likely nothing for the new os, although it looks pretty nice. Just too much to keep me busy on the one platform.

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