The History of Software and Astrology
When French astrologer André Barbault programmed an IBM computer called Astroflash in the late 1960s—capable of covering nearly two billion possible planetary interpretations—he couldn't have imagined just how profoundly computing would reshape his ancient art. Yet here we are, decades later, with astrology software that fits in your pocket and calculates in seconds what once took skilled practitioners hours.
The marriage between astrology and computing technology ain't just about convenience. It's fundamentally altered who can practice astrology and how deeply they can explore its interpretations.
The Mainframe Era: When Horoscopes Cost a Fiver
Before your phone could tell you Mercury was in retrograde, there were room-sized machines doing the maths. In June 1969, Astroflash II was temporarily installed at Grand Central Station in New York, offering a 14-page horoscope in two minutes for five dollars. Picture that: commuters queueing up beside a fiberglass cubicle housing an enormous IBM computer, waiting for their cosmic printout on blue-and-white striped paper.
The first documented attempts to reduce the workload in generating an astrological chart using computer technology can be dated back to the late 1960s with André Barbault and his Astroflash in France. Before this technological leap, casting a horoscope meant hours of laborious manual calculations from astronomical data. One mistake in your arithmetic? Start over.
The computational challenge was real. Astrologers needed precise planetary positions—ephemerides, in the technical parlance—and calculating these by hand was exhausting work. IBM systems engineer Neil Michelsen founded Astro Computing Services (ACS) in San Diego in 1973, and his company started producing computer-generated tables of astrological ephemerides. This wasn't just a time-saver; it was a game-changer for accuracy.
The Personal Computer Revolution: Astrology Comes Home
Then came the 1970s. Suddenly, computing wasn't just for universities and corporations anymore.
Astrologer and computer programmer Michael Erlewine was involved early in making astrological software for microcomputers available to the general public in the late 1970s. Erlewine, originally a musician, taught himself programming on handheld calculators in the early 1970s, driven by a need to research techniques that simply had no published tables yet—heliocentrics, local space, modern astrophysics applied to chart work.
In 1978, Erlewine founded Matrix Software, and in 1980 he published a book with all the algorithms and data required for owners of microcomputers to make their own complete astrological programmes. That manual travelled the world, inspiring programmers and astrologers alike. His early algorithms were even published by Hewlett-Packard.
Meanwhile, Astrolabe, Inc. was founded in 1979 by noted astrologer Robert Hand and a group of fellow astrologers, starting with programmes for the Radio Shack TRS-80 and the Apple II. By 1980, with the release of Astro-Scope, Astrolabe became the first company to produce horoscope-reading programmes for microcomputers.
According to well-documented accounts of American astrologers, the late 1970s to early 1980s can be considered as a landmark in the history of astrological computer programming in the US. Scary how quickly things moved, really.
When Astrologers Met Their New Competition
Not everyone welcomed the silicon invaders. When the Erlewines published an astrological calendar with a computer on its cover in the late 1970s, they received a letter from a nationally-known astrologer berating them for in any way associating computers with astrology. Astrologers were computer-phobic, even though—ironically—computers would eventually liberate them from tedious calculations.
The resistance got fiercer. When Matrix pioneered Astro*Talk, their series of interpretive-report-writing software that printed out complete astrological interpretation reports, there was a hot debate at an AFA Convention forum discussion, where one astrologer burst into tears at the shame of allowing these computer-generated reports to even enter the field.
Could a machine really understand the nuances of a natal chart? Could software capture the intuitive leaps a skilled astrologer makes? These weren't just technical questions—they struck at the heart of what astrology practitioners believed their craft to be.
The Democratisation Effect
The advent of a personal computer in the early 1970s in the US accompanied, above all, the transition from elite to mass astrology. Before software, you needed either considerable skill in astronomical calculations or enough money to pay someone who had that skill. Computer programmes allowed anyone to tackle the complexity of an astrological chart and reduced errors in extensive calculating.
As personal home computers became cheaper through the 1980s and machines from Apple, Commodore, IBM, and Radio Shack found their way into people's homes, Matrix began producing programmes for the consumer market. Products like Friends and Lovers, Lucky Lotto!, and Biowriter could tell you of your fortunes in romance, the best time to gamble, or the cycles of your body's own energy.
This shift wasn't just happening in America. The late Soviet Union gradually saw personal computers give astrology, numerology, Tarot, and other forms of occult practices further impetus, despite officials not approving of these New Age imports from the US and Western Europe.
The Windows Revolution and Beyond
In 1993, Astrolabe was approached by Esoteric Technologies Pty Ltd of Australia to become the worldwide publisher for Solar Fire, first released in Australia in 1992. That programme became a watershed moment. Solar Fire has become the major Windows astrological calculation programme in the English-speaking world.
What made Solar Fire special? It wasn't just about calculation anymore. Modern astrology software could display and print positions using astrological glyph symbols in graphic charts, save and retrieve individuals' data to database files, compare planet positions between different charts, calculate dates of important future events, and even generate colourful geographical maps showing where planets rise and culminate at significant times—a technique called astrocartography.
Today's programmes bundle electronic atlases with longitude, latitude, and time zone histories for thousands of cities. They assemble interpretive text into comprehensive printed reports. Some offer specialist modules for everything from Medieval and Horary astrology to Cosmobiology and Uranian techniques.
The Mobile Revolution: Your Pocket Astrologer
Now we're in the age where AstroGold and Time Passages work as apps on your smartphone. Cloud-based astrology software provides real-time chart animation, compatibility with multiple devices, and convenience from anywhere—no updates needed.
Companies like Wilfred Hazelwood understand that whether you're a professional astrologer building client reports or simply curious about your rising sign, the barrier to entry has never been lower. The computational heavy lifting that once required university mainframes now happens on the device in your pocket.
What Computing Really Changed
The transformation isn't just technical. Many inventors of astrological software were not only computer specialists but also inspired New Age activists and entrepreneurs. They brought different energy to an ancient practice—one focused on experimentation, accessibility, and research at scale.
Modern programmes store thousands of charts, letting astrologers spot patterns across hundreds of natal charts that would've been impossible to research manually. They can animate transits, showing planetary movements across time. They calculate with Swiss Ephemeris precision—the standard developed by Alois Treindl and Dieter Koch that most software has used since 1997.
But here's what computing hasn't changed: the fundamental interpretive work. Software can tell you Saturn's transiting your seventh house. It can't tell you what that means for your marriage given everything else happening in your life. That bit's still down to human insight—or at least, for the practitioners who believe in astrology's interpretive value, it is.
The Ongoing Evolution
The story ain't over. From Coleco's 1979 Zodiac Astrology Computer, a consumer product intended as a "personal astrology assistant", to today's AI-enhanced interpretation engines, astrology software keeps evolving.
What started with André Barbault's Astroflash spitting out horoscopes in a Parisian boutique has become a global industry. Professional programmes like Solar Fire, Janus, Sirius, and Kepler compete on features—from Vedic calculations to asteroid tracking to declination searches across tens of thousands of charts.
The next frontier? Perhaps more sophisticated AI that can truly synthesise multiple chart factors the way experienced astrologers do. Perhaps augmented reality overlaying astrological information onto the night sky as you look up. Perhaps something we can't yet imagine.
What's certain is this: computing didn't kill astrology. It transformed it, democratised it, and gave it tools to explore itself more deeply than ever before. And whether you believe the stars influence our lives or think it's all codswallop, you've got to admit—that's quite a journey for an ancient art.
