who started studying astrology in the late 1960s, had purchased a copy of Michael
Erlewine’s 1980 Manual of Computer Programming for Astrologers.Within two weeks,
Halloran had figured out how to bypass the typographical errors in this book and
released into the public domain an astrology calculation program that ran in the Basic
interpreter on CP/M computers.
Mac programmer David C. Oshel discovered Halloran’s program and rewrote it
in modular form, which allowed Halloran to add chart comparison to its capabilities.
Version 7, also called ASTROLPC.BAS, was the last version released with source
code. When versions 8 and 9 added support for saved charts, a dating service search
engine, a transits list, and an on-screen graphic wheel that even the commercial pro-
grams did not have at that time, Halloran began charging a modest registration fee to
access the program’s more advanced features. By this time, in 1986, IBM PC and XT
clones were becoming popular, and Halloran ported the program and compiled it for
the IBM PC. In 1987, in response to a complaint from Matrix, Michael Erlewine’s
company, Halloran deleted the calculation routines taken from Erlewine’s book and
replaced them with faster, more accurate astronomical routines. In addition to collect-
ing shareware registration fees, Halloran sold many program copies from a classified ad
in the back of Computer Shoppermagazine, from which astrology magazine editors such
as Richard Nolle and Kenneth Irving discovered and reviewed the program.
Besides improving his shareware calculation program, Halloran wrote an astro-
logical research program called TimeSearch that reverse-engineers an astrology chart.
In collaboration with other programmers, such as John Molfese, author of the Astro-
dynes program, James Davis, author of the Self Search and Handwriting Analyzer pro-
grams, and at the urging of the late Joseph Hettiger, owner of a Texas company selling
astrology programs for the Commodore 64 computer, Halloran wrote his first report
writer program, LifeTrends, with transits interpretations by San Antonio radio
astrologer Deanna Christensen. By 1989, Halloran was able to quit his technical
writer/quality assurance job with an HMO data processing department to create and
sell astrology software full time.
In June 1990, Halloran Software announced the first version of AstrolDeluxe,
which proceeded to sell one thousand copies in the first six months. This program
added color printing and advanced calculations, such as progressed and return charts,
as well as Chiron and the major asteroids. In the same year, Halloran began a produc-
tive collaboration with astrologer/journalism student Janice Barsky, who had written
original natal, compatibility, and transits interpretations on her word processor and
was cutting and pasting inexpensive reports for clients who could not pay for a profes-
sional reading. Out of this collaboration came the StarMatch and Natal Professional
report writer programs. The last MS-DOS-based report writer was the hobbyist-priced
Natal Profiles program with interpretations by Hollywood-based metaphysical
astrologer Carolyne Lacy.
Microsoft’s Windows operating system began to loom on the horizon, so while
Halloran worked to finish Natal Professional, he began collaborating with Robert
Brown, a Gemini friend who already owned 20 Windows programs, on AstrolDeluxe
for Windows, the first copies of which sold in December 1992. The Windows environ-
THEASTROLOGYBOOK [291]
Halloran Software