Hubble Telescope

THE
OBSERVATORY

Simulation Software


My own home-made simulation software -- strictly fun stuff, written in QuickC and running under DOS.  Sorry, no graphics; just text output.  These programs should run on any DOS or Windows-compatible system.

IMPORTANT NOTE: These downloads contain executable files.  They are my own programs, and should run on an MS-DOS compatable machine without difficulty.  But any downloaded executable file should be treated with caution.  I am not responsible for anything that goes wrong!  But if you have difficulty or questions, email me here.

 

Check this page regularly for software updates!

(Latest update: May 28, 2000 -
Big Gun metric version corrected)



. Navigation

Return to
Observatory

 

Capitalism:
The Great Game

Politics

Fiction and
Speculation

Science and
Technology

History

Culture Vulture

Shameless Plug

Simulation
Software

About Me

Links Page

 

HOT Links!

Search Google

Salon

Slate

Sky & Telescope

Extrasolar
Planets
Encyclopedia

Latest Polls

Daily Howler

Democrats
Forum

 

Downloads Available --

 

New!  Galley rowing sim!  And yet another update of my Spring Style battleship sim and Big Gun sim - all posted on May 21, 2001 (see below for these).

 

Galley: Rowing Performance Simulator

ZIP package with a program (in Anglo-American and metric versions) to compute the number of rowers needed for a galley to reach a desired speed, or how fast it can go for a given number of rowers.   Ramming Speeeed!

 

Space Sims:  Starship, Spacewep, and Fusion

This ZIP package contains three independent but related sim programs:

Starship:  Spacecraft specification sim.  Assign masses to the major components of a spacecraft (crew cabin, internal or external payload, fuel and tankage, and drive engine).  Determine thrust and fuel consumption based on engine power output, full-power fuel endurance, and ship delta v (total speed-change potential). 

The program also gives some strategic and tactical operations parameters, and estimates ship size for various configurations.  (Estimated ship sizes vary somewhat from my estimates in the Interstellar Trade article on this site, since I just winged that with my calculator)

Spacewep:  Space weapons effects sims.  Models energy requirements and effects for lasers, kinetic weapons, and nuclear warheads, as well as protective value of armor, and some tracking and targeting parameters.

Fusion:  Models characteristics of a pulse-fusion drive engine, as well as a more generic type of fusion drive.

Each program comes with some on-screen documentation, including instructions and explanations of concepts.  To download a ZIPped text file version of these instructions and documentation, click here.

Unfortunately, the programs do not save output to a file - my old QuickC compiler almost choked on them as it was - but you can use the regular Windoze "Print Screen" function to save your work.  

Click here for the C language source code. 

Go here for much excellent discussion of space warfare concepts and games/simulations.

 

Spring Style:  Battleship Specification Simulator

New revised Version 1.2.1 is now available in beta! 

Also Big Gun, my upgraded naval gun simulator!

New upgrades of both programs - Spring Style now allows you to enter design horsepower, and Big Gun lets you save range and penetration tables in a file.

For both programs, ZIP file contains both the Anglo-American ("English") and Metric versions, executable files only. 

Here is a ZIP library of sample output files for various historical ships simmed with Spring Style.  If you are interested in the C language source code, you can download it here.  (Big Gun source code is included in the main ZIP download package.)

Ships simmed with Spring Style often appear on the Design board at www.warships1, here.  I imagine gun sims will start appearing as well, with the new version of Big Gun.  For another byproduct of the sim, visit Tarrantry

Other naval sims and general cool toyz are available at Greg Locock's site, here.  Download his DreadCAD graphical sim, and Rolf Hoffman's submarine sim. (These require Excel.)

 

Brief Notes:  (Slightly fuller notes come with the packages.)

Given desired hull dimensions, armament, armor, top speed, etc., Spring Style determines whether specifications are viable, and provides some seakeeping and survivability characteristics.  

Program estimates displacement (full-load, Washington Treaty "standard," etc.) based on hull dimensions you enter.  You then assign guns, armor, and so forth.   If the result looks acceptable you can save it to a text file.  This file includes a "machine-readable" portion so you can revise the design later, or work with someone else's design.

The program models large combatants (battleships and cruisers) pretty well; you have to bend the hull-strength standards a bit for destroyers and possibly some Treaty-era cruisers.

The Big Gun simulator takes gun caliber, shell weight, and muzzle velocity or length of gun in calibers, and estimates range and armor penetration for a given elevation.  The new release allows you to save a file with range and penetration tables.

 

Planetary Climate Simulator

ZIP package, modestly updated for a bit cleaner output, and to allow you to enter the mass of the star the planet orbits, instead of just letting the program determine mass (and thus length of year) from the mass-luminosity relationship.

Generates average climate of an earthlike planet, given orbital and other paramaters.  At least, that's the intent!  (Well, really, it models temperature by latitude and overall planetary cloud cover; it doesn't tell you whether it's raining out!) 

Based on the parameters you enter, the main program gives you the average daily temperature in various latitudes at twelve evenly spaced "monthly" intervals through the year (regardless of year length).   The program runs through a specified number of model years (taking a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on your machine) to allow the model climate to stabilize. 

Text file output is a summary for each "year" of the run, followed by the month-by-month analysis for the final year.  The line spacing of the report is a bit arbitrary, designed for my old computer, but should be easily readable.

Another program in the package models daily temperature ranges; a third gives a quick&dirty planet-wide maximum and minimum temperature estimate.

ZIP file contains executables and instructions, in English and metric versions - they only really differ in how you enter the diameter of the planet, and report of surface area in each latitude belt. 

Go here for the source code


 

 

 

 

Return to Observatory

Last revised 11/07/2006 ... by RM Robinson


Email me: Lyonesse@compuserve.com

 

Back to Top

 

Blue Line

 

Observatory Front Page

Capitalism: The Great Game - Politics
Fiction and Speculation
- Science and Technology
History - Culture Vulture - Shameless Plug
Simulation Software - About Me - Update Log
Links Page

Email: Lyonesse@compuserve.com