Haven't you had days when life seemed just a pleasant walk in the park, days when you absolutely knew for a fact that you could handle anything the world threw at you? But on the other hand, how about when you're having "one of those days" and you stumble through life afflicted by physical, emotional and intellectual butterfingers?

Such changes in coordination, mood and awareness might not be mere quirks of fate, they may result from "biorhythms" - natural cycles that supposedly occur throughout the lifetime of every human being.

There are three ongoing cycles starting at birth- physical, emotional and intellectual. Each cycle lasts a different number of days and is mathematically a plotted sine wave. The most significant points of a cycle are the beginning and the middle. These are "critical days" when the cycle changes from the plus or discharge phase (high) to the minus or recharge phase (low), and vice versa.

BASIC Biorhythms doesn't merely display your own cycles on the screen. It can also calculate your biorhythmic compatibility with that special someone. And it prints out your graphs on any printer-even daisy-wheel models.

Admittedly, many people believe that biorhythms are as unscientific as astrology or spirit channeling. But now, 8-bit Atari users can try out biorhythm analysis for themselves, simply by typing in a BASIC program.

THE PROGRAM

Type in Listing 1, BIO.BAS, check it with TYPO II and SAVE a copy before you RUN it. BASIC Biorhythms first asks whether you want [B]iorhythms (which will display your graphs) or the [C]ompatibility Profile between two people.

When prompted for your name, type it in and press [RETURN]. When BASIC Biorhythms asks for your birth-date, enter it in the form MM,DD,YYYY and press [RETURN]. You are then asked which month and year you'd like plotted. Enter it in the form MM,YYYY and press [RETURN]. BASIC Biorhythms only accepts years between 1900 and 2100 AD. (That's because the program computes on the more accurate 365.25-day Julian Year Calendar. See Micro Julius, Antic, June 1986-ANTIC ED)

The biorhythm cycles are then displayed on the screen. If you are looking at a color TV or monitor, the blue curve represents the physical cycle, red represents the emotional and green represents the intellectual. These are the generally accepted biorhythm colors.

Critical days are when one or more of the curves crosses the center line. When two graphs cross in one day, it's double-critical. And when all three curves cross the center line, it's the dreaded triple-critical day.

After you have seen all you want, press a key and the program will display a menu. From here you can [G]o ahead one month at a time, [S]ee another month, [E]nter another birthday, [U]se the compatibility profile, or [Q]uit.

You can also [P]rint out that month's graphs on virtually any printer-even a daisywheel. The chart is created from patterns of different letters and symbols. You can trace the curves with different colored markers to make the finished chart easier to read.

COMPATIBILITY

To use the Compatibility Profile option, just enter the names and birthdates of two people. The computer will calculate three percentages-one for each cycle. A low percentage means that the two persons' cycles are out of sync. They might need to give each other an unusually large amount of understanding. A high percentage means that the pair's cycles are in step with each other and the couple will tend to experience highs and lows at the same time.

Listing 1  BIO.BAS Download