A Brief History of Janus

by Hank Friedman

It was almost 16 years ago when I first encountered the astrology program called Janus (version 3) created by Hamish Saunders, Angela Thomas, and Mark Griffin. I was immediately struck by how user-friendly it was, its phenomenal bibliography of astrological references, easy-to-use wheel and page designers, powerful Cosmobiology and Traditional Astrology modules, and the well-written set of full interpretations.

It was originally, however, priced comparably to the already well-established astrology programs, and had a hard slog reaching the astrological market. Its creators saw the wisdom of lowering its price, and Janus took off. In fact, it quickly became the Best Buy in astrological software, and still is.

With the release of version 4, Janus became a true "Swiss army knife" program, incredibly versatile and powerful, with a full suite of astrological techniques. The added astromapping functions, including full relocation reports, multiple Solar Eclipse paths, Cyclo*Carto*Graphy, and aspect and midpoint lines; as well as the enhanced Traditional Astrology functions made version 4 a very impressive program. It offered many capabilities still not available anywhere else.

The only obstacles to the full success of Janus were a couple of "flies in the ointment": The procedure for installing Janus 4 was a bit complicated, and worse still, on some peoples' PCs, Janus was actually impossible to install and/or wouldn't run due to conflicts with other software. (The company was always quickly responsive in trying to help resolve these issues when possible.)

In a brilliant decision, Mark and Hamish decided to overhaul the installation procedure completely, making it completely effortless and reliable in version 5. They also resolved the compatibility issues and now Janus 5 runs on all Windows 7 through 10 PCs without difficulty.

But they also decided to "go all out" and revamp and improve the program's interface and most of its modules, as well as add superlative new modules (the Astrological Calendar, Vedic screen, and Theme Astromaps).

Janus 5 is now one of the best designed and most powerful astrology programs in existence, and incredibly worthwhile for both beginning and advanced astrologers.
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