Original review published on Steve Litchfield's 3-Lib.

Normally when an author ports his application over to the Series 5 I roll in a mini-review with the original Series 3 version as there isn't that much difference between the two. In John Davies's case, however, not only has the program changed name but it's been largely rewritten, with a different interface and many improved functions, fully justifying a separate review. If you've got a Series 3a or 3c, see my review of GeoClock. If you've got a '5', read on...

SolarMap is, as you've probably gathered by now from the name and the screen-shot, an interactive map of the world showing the real-time day/night situation. You can grab your own copy from John's web page. The digital map is supplied in half a dozen or so resolutions, with the Series 5 zoom keys operating the magnification level and a tap of the pen setting a new map centre. The actual map detail is graphically quite impressive, with rivers and lakes being shown for most countries in the world.

Once started calculating, it has to be said that SolarMap isn't the fastest program in the world, and it will certainly eat up huge amounts of your Psion's processor time when it's active. But as John points out in his documentation, the calculations the program is having to perform are staggeringly complex and it should be viewed as amazing that this sort of application exists at all in usable form. The other impact of the program upon your Psion is that the maps take up over 800 kb of disk space if you install them all, though I was impressed by the automatic way in which SolarMap intelligently handles a user installing just a few selected maps rather than the whole lot.

In addition to its core function, SolarMap tells you the time of sunset and sunrise in hundreds of cities around the world, plus things like "Julian" date, sun and moon declination, RA and azimuth etc. Instead of the more standard help database, John's linked the Help menu function through to a Word file, which at least covers the basics of operation.

SolarMap is effectively freeware, which is very welcome, though John does ask for donations to his mum's housekeeping if anyone's impressed enough to make a voluntary contribution!

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