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Purchase the latest version of the IO Pro Pak, shipped to you on a CD -- U.S. orders only -- including the IO Edition, IO Converter, IO Infinite Atlas, IO Sprite, IO Midnight Ephemeris, IO Detective, IO CartoGraphy, Advanced Transit Search, and The Famous Charts Collection, and PennDragon Fonts, (at the discounted price of $355) by clicking on the following button: Author's Note: The first astrology software was written for the earliest microcomputers, the Commodore Pet, TRS-80, and Apple II. When IBM released their original IBM PC, and allowed other companies to create clones (computers that were compatible with the PC), astrology software companies jumped at the opportunity to write programs for these more powerful and inexpensive machines. But when the first Macintosh computer reached the marketplace, it was priced at three times the cost of a PC clones, and was incompatible with the IBM PC standard. As a result of both of these factors, only a tiny fraction of astrologers purchased Macs. At the present time, only about 9.5% of computers are Macintoshes. This has created a self-reinforcing pattern: astrology software creators have kept writing more astrology programs for PCs because that was the type of computer that most astrologers owned, and astrologers have kept purchasing PCs because of the wealth of astrology software for them. The outcome of all of this is that while there are hundreds of astrology programs for the PC, and therefore fierce competition among companies and rapid evolution of the software, there are only a couple of astrology programs for the Mac, and much slower software development on that platform. For this reason, I cannot assess Macintosh astrology software by PC astrology software standards, as even today, there are many astrological functions unavailable on Macs, including Cosmobiology, Horary, Medieval, Ancient, Uranian, Astronomical (e.g. Planetarium), Fixed Stars, Prenatal, Arabic Parts, transits by and to midpoints, etc. In addition, most of the astrological functions that are available on PCs have a greater range of options than they do on a Mac, e.g. partial returns, graphic ephemeride for latitude, ancient date charts, etc. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For the past two decades, Western astrologers have had to use PCs running Windows to perform many essential astrological functions. Now, with the release of the new version of IO Pro Pak for OS X (which requires a Macintosh computer that uses System 10.2 or later) Western astrologers finally have a comprehensive set of astrological functions on the Mac. In the new OS X Pro Pak, IO Edition is bundled with IO Atlas, the IO Detective, IO Sprite, IO Cartography, and IO Converter. This is the software package most astrologers using Macs will want to get. ---------------------------------------------------------------- The IO Edition, TimeCycle's core chart calculation program, offers most of the basic and intermediate functions astrologers want, such as single, bi-, tri-, and quad-wheels, harmonic wheels, Composite, Relationship, and Coalescent charts, midpoint trees and sorted listings, aspect and interaspect tables, Solar and Lunar Returns, Draconic charts, Graphic Ephemeride in 30, 45, and 90 degree moduli, the four major asteroids and comet Chiron, primary, secondary, tertiary, solar arc, and Q2 quotidian progressions, Sunrise charts, 12 ayanamsas, 9 house systems, and a calculation range from 102 AD to 2050 AD. As one might expect from a Mac program, IO Edition offers simple installation, superb ease-of-use, and excellent graphics, with the ability to export charts and pages to different graphic formats. It allows you to add notes to each chart, and to easily move charts from one chart file to another. Its Quick View feature allows you to easily scroll through charts sequentially in your chart file, viewing chart wheels and notes for each person. It is also remarkably simple to customize the program. You can change the color of each planet and sign, and the logo, and select the house system, local place, etc. all from one Preferences screen. IO Edition was the first program on any computing platform to offer a drag-and-drop page designer. Using its Graphic Layout module, you can design new pages, selecting from many types of single, bi-, tri-, and quad chart wheels, several choices of tables (house cusps, personal points, signs and houses, etc.), midpoint trees and sorts, captions, logos, etc., and resize objects easily, line them up with each other, and create any number of user-designed pages. From its inception, this has been a powerful and simple-to-use design tool. See Figure One: Data and Tree Page The manual that comes with IO Edition is ideal for beginners and professional astrologers alike, as it covers even the most basic of concepts as well as documenting all of the features of the program clearly and completely. The program also includes the full manual as a readable file included with the software. IO Edition comes with a large selection of chart styles, as well as data pages, aspectarians, pages designed for A4 paper, multiple wheel pages, asteroid designs, and more. See Figure Two: Data Star Chart. While viewing charts, you can quickly change the background and foreground colors from five choices, and also view many types of charts in multiple windows. A very important feature in IO5 is the ability to combine several types of predictive searches into one listing. IO Edition offers transit-to-natal, progressed-to-progressed, progressed-to-natal, and what it calls Weather – which is their name for transit-to-transit function, which includes sign ingresses, eclipses, and lunar phases. IO Edition also uses well-chosen symbols for each type of eclipse and lunation. You can create listings of transits showing the exact hour and minute of exact aspect, but these lists do not show entering or leaving orb events.For over a decade, earlier versions of IO Edition had the distinction of being the only astrology software available that listed the date of planetary station (within orb) along with entering, leaving, and exact dates for each transit hit, and by the time you read this, that feature should be re-implemented in this version. This is the only module of IO Edition that I found to be unstable in the early version of IO5 that I received, but TimeCycles is working diligently to improve its stability and functionality. Another major innovation is the ability to drag data from one place in IO Edition to another. For example, you could grab the birth data from a file and place it into a chart wheel to see the new person's chart, or to a map to view their Astro*Carto*Graphy or place it into another IO program like IO Sprite or an IO report writer. This drag-and-drop feature makes it effortless to fill each ring of a quad wheel, or to quickly view several people's charts or maps. Well done! The IO Edition has always been easy to use, and well-loved for its style of chart wheel with clear and bold glyphs. Now it is by far the most powerful astrology program available for the Mac, and will empower many astrologers to explore additional predictive techniques. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Perhaps the most important enhancement for astrologers in this version of the Pro Pak is the addition of astromapping. In the new IO Cartography module ($99.50 if purchased separately), you can view and print both Astro*Carto*Graphy and Local Space maps. The Astro*Carto*Graphy maps can use either mundane or Zodiacal coordinates, show the standard planetary lines (rising, culminating, anticulminating and descending) and also depict lines for when planets are square or trine to the angles. You can view IO's Local Space lines as they originate from the birth place, or from any other place on the map. The maps include city names, national boundaries, and coastal details, and a choice of land and sea colors. While a Paran listing is presently not yet available, it should be forthcoming. The maps are beautifully rendered with great precision, and the software offers several choices of map colors, too. See Figure Three: IO Cartography Map. The IO Detective ($195) is a research program which searches chart files, for planets, asteroids, chiron, angles, or the node in specific signs, houses, degrees, qualities, elements, and aspects (as well as a person's first or last name, or month or day of birth) and shows what charts meet these criteria. In addition to allowing you to do And/Or searches (e.g. Neptune square Moon and Moon in Cancer), the output is particularly well designed, as you can see the exact planetary positions of each planet or the orb of the aspect searched for, and can sort on any column. These are very nice touches, as is the included Famous Charts Collection ($79.50 if purchased separately)with 3000 famous people's charts, to enable you to start researching as soon as you get the program. IO Converter allows you to convert an entire chart file to a different house system or Zodiac. What a great way to explore different methodologies! IO Atlas is the Mac version of the full ACS U.S. and World atlases, and allows users to have coordinates and time zones automatically supplied during data entry for over 250,000 cities throughout the world. Finally, IO Sprite is a unique tool for searching time (forward or backwards) for specific astrological configurations. You can view a wheel of the transiting planets in real time, as well as a bi-wheel with transiting planets around a natal chart. (Unfortunately, IO Sprite does not yet draw aspect lines between the two charts in a biwheel.) More importantly, you can search time for when specific planetary events occurred or will occur, such as stations, returns, house ingresses, transits to specific zodiacal positions (i.e. Sidereal or Tropical positions to the nearest minute of arc for specific planets, asteroids, Chiron, or the M.C.), and aspects between two planets, and then instantly see a wheel for the selected event. IO Sprite is fast, easy to use, and customizable. You can select which planets to display, the colors used, and the speed and direction of the time search. There is no comparable tool for Windows computers. IO Sprite is an inspired program. (Note: for those upgrading from previous versions, TimeCycles Research includes their OS 9 IO Transit Pro module, which has entering, exact, station, and leaving transit listings, and their OS 9 The IO Ephemeris, if it was already owned. The ephemeris prints monthly ephemeris pages including the planetary positions for each day, plus tables of planetary stations, Lunar phases, planetary ingresses, void-of-course Moon, Solar and Lunar eclipses, and Lunar ingresses. I wish Windows astrology programs offered all of these on their ephemeris pages. The good news is that the IO Ephemeris add-on will be converted to OS X by the beginning of 2005, and the entering-exact-station-leaving functions of IO Transit Pro will be incorporated into the IO Edition.) TimeCycles Research is hard at work improving and enhancing their software. Each of the programs in the Pro Pak is completely integrated with the others, so that you can easily transfer chart data from one program to another's. The IO Pro Pak for OS X is a wonderful and beautifully designed collection of astrology programs for the Mac, and will fulfill the needs of most Mac astrologers, amateurs and professionals alike. Discounts on Software When you purchase astrology software through me, you will get: 1. My free expert guidance in choosing the right program. 2. The best pricing distributors are allowed to offer. 3. Free U.S. shipping, unless prohibited by the manufacturer, and for some programs, free Priority shipping. 4. Additional benefits. E.g. I offer a very inexpensive excellent transit report for purchasers of Kepler & Sirius, over 60 free beautiful extra artistic wheels for Solar Fire Gold, etc. 5. You are supporting my website, allowing me to continue posting astrology tutorials, software reviews, and much more. 6. Your software is fully registered to you and shipped to you directly from the manufacturer, with their full customer support as well as mine. To go to my secure astrology software order form, click here. Click to Return to  Send e-mail to Hank Friedman by clicking here If the above email link doesn't work, please send me an email to: stars@soulhealing.com Copyright © 2004 Hank Friedman --- ALL RIGHTS RESERVED |