From: Roelf Renkema Subject: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 01 Oct 1997 09:15:40 +0100 Still can't get 9.6 up and running on my machine. I installed a new graphics card but it still won't go. Is does run an older machine but this baby here says no and: I'm using the dos version 19.6. Now under DOS it just won't startup and crashes my system (a Cyrix 486-dx2 66Mhz) Under Win95 I get the message that it's using a wrong instruction and halts on 391D:0BE0 interupts used none BTW I Got the right archive I followed Noels messies on that So I think (but who am I) that there is a problem in the code. So I now give you Fractint programmers the option: Turn the code upside down or Deliver a new window version or else I will go play somewhere else. Ha must be a hard choice for you guys and girls &8-D Greetz Grey -- _/_/| grey@nym,alias.net (o(o) \ ' The Wolf ' OO~~ / \--__ ,/ "I like'm sweet and wet" |/~ `-' Proud member of nl.erotiek.bdsm Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: cindy mitchell Subject: (fractint) 3D Formula Date: 01 Oct 1997 01:28:32 -0700 Both Linda and Rich were correct. My 3D comes after each and every " = " sign, also at the end of each line in the color section. So along with deleting I have to reformat. I am so glad for this forum. It is nice to know there are so many fractint enthusiast out there. Thank You, Cindy Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ao950@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Derbyshire) Subject: Re: (fractint) An interesting fractal Date: 01 Oct 1997 09:39:13 -0400 (EDT) If you try some guy's frm file and see nothing/garbage, try: * maxiter=2000 * float=y * zooming out, zooming in * outside=iter/viewwindows=n/inside=0/color cycle (just in case your palette is goofed up or you set inside=outside=0 or something!) * Check the z screen. Some formulas use a parameter as a bailout. If you use the default 0 you'll get nothing. Look for a comment saying "use small nonzero number for p2" or large number or whatever, and look for the formula ending with something like lastsqr<=p2 or something. Try a big real number for p1 or p2, then the other, then small numbers like 0.001. -- .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Jay Hill" Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 01 Oct 1997 10:26:06 -0700 Greetz Grey wrote: >So I think (but who am I) that there is a problem in the code. There may be the possibility that your Cyrix 486-dx2 chip is bad, over speed or getting too hot. On the Merseene list, there have been extensive discussions about Non-Intel chips (specifically Pentium level) not performing as well as Intel on mathematical processes. The guts of the Merseene algorithm (http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm) are used by Intel as part of their spot test of the processors. Jay Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Jay Hill" Subject: Re: (fractint) An interesting fractal Date: 01 Oct 1997 11:19:44 -0700 Charles wrote: >Looking at the center of a side at a considerable magnification and a count of 1023 it appears that we have a smooth border. Well it still has a smooth vorder with maxiter = 1e9. But the edge moved in a little. Strange.... Jay Fig3 { ; raise count and zoom to edge ; looks like smooth lines still reset=1960 type=formula formulafile=dewey.frm formulaname=test97c center-mag=-0.11277288466532970/+0.22362335945091970/1525879 params=0/-1 float=y maxiter=1023000000 colors=0D0000<15>9Tx<24>24N13M12K00I00H<14>001000000<2>800B00F10I10<4>W4\ 0Z50a60c70e80g90jB0<2>oE0qF0sH0tJ0vK0wM0xN0<4>zV0zW0yT0<2>sJ0qF0nE0mE0<4\ >Z80W60T50Q30O30<3>E10C00B00<10>100000100200<5>B0AD0CE0F<20>k0w<7>N0QK0M\ J0L<17>401000<2>010020040<26>0d00f00e0<25>080060050030020000000 } Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ao950@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Derbyshire) Subject: Re: (fractint) An interesting fractal Date: 02 Oct 1997 09:58:27 -0400 (EDT) >>Looking at the center of a side at a considerable magnification and a >count >of 1023 it appears that we have a smooth border. > > >Well it still has a smooth vorder with maxiter = 1e9. But the edge moved >in a little. Could you resend that Charles? Some copies of it got garbled in the mail system. Mine for instance came out "1e9" :-) -- .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dewey@mipg.upenn.edu (Dewey Odhner) Subject: Re: (fractint) An interesting fractal Date: 02 Oct 1997 10:21:52 EDT > From: VRCH78B@prodigy.com (MR CHARLES F CROCKER) > Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:35:18, -0500 ... > Looking at the center of a side at a considerable magnification and a count > of 1023 it appears that we have a smooth border. But if we go down closer > to the chaotic appearing area and raise the count we see high count > filaments creeping twords the center. I suspect that at high enough counts > and magnification the apparently smooth side will break up everywhere. You are probably right. I retract my conjecture that there is a neighborhood where the boundary has fractal dimension 1. But those filaments that cluster against the smooth part of the boundary do not attach to the smooth part, but around the ends. Thus I still conjecture that it is non-locally connected. --Dewey Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roelf Renkema Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 02 Oct 1997 17:51:42 +0100 Op 10:26 1-10-97 -0700 schreef Jay Hill zoiets als: > >Greetz Grey wrote: > >>So I think (but who am I) that there is a problem in the code. > >There may be the possibility that your Cyrix 486-dx2 chip is bad, over >speed or getting too hot. Na it must be somewhere in the instructionset. If it would be the latter then it should occure with other software to and I'm sorry to say that only Fractint troubles me. But I will check. Tomorow I will try the proccessor from my other computer on which Fractint runs without problems,in this one. Talk about debugging &8-) >On the Merseene list, there have been extensive discussions about Non-Intel >chips >(specifically Pentium level) not performing as well as Intel on >mathematical processes. > >The guts of the Merseene algorithm (http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm) are >used >by Intel as part of their spot test of the processors. > > >Jay Thanx for the tip anyway, we will see I keep you folks posted. Gray. Greetz Grey -- _/_/| grey@nym,alias.net (o(o) \ ' The Wolf ' OO~~ / \--__ ,/ "I like'm sweet and wet" |/~ `-' Proud member of nl.erotiek.bdsm Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: A M Kelley Subject: (fractint) Centering problem Date: 02 Oct 1997 15:34:40 -0400 (EDT) --1920402471-743720403-875820975:#23014 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Is there any way to center this fellow? --Alice --1920402471-743720403-875820975:#23014 Content-Type: APPLICATION/octet-stream; name="center.par" Content-ID: Content-Description: Flying_squirrel { ; amkelley@freenet.columbus.oh.us reset=1960 type=julfn+zsqrd function=ident passes=1 center-mag=-0.42372894500000010/-0.00009917999999998/0.7528158/0.9997 params=-0.85162353515625/0.4166107177734375 maxiter=300 bailoutest=and inside=bof60 logmap=yes symmetry=yaxis colors=Y0Azzm<5>yoRxmNxkJwiFvfD<3>qU6pR4oQ4<12>ZC5YB5W96U87T77R58<6>iVG<\ 14>vqgwsiwsh<13>wjHwiFwiF<10>mZFlXFkWFjUEiTE<9>ZEBXCAXCA<29>mZEn_FmZFlYF\ kXF<2>jVEjUEiTDiSC<5>gM9gL8gL8fK8<12>YD9XCAXDA<13>hSCiUDiUEiVEiVEjWFiVG<\ 14>vqgwsiwsh<14>wiFD12A00<7>V09`0C<25>yxl } --1920402471-743720403-875820975:#23014-- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Damien M. Jones" Subject: Re: (fractint) Centering problem Date: 02 Oct 1997 15:58:52 -0400 Alice, - Is there any way to center this fellow? --Alice Sure. Press "z", F6, enter "0" for Center X. Hit return twice. Unless this is not what you mean... Neat picture. Damien M. Jones / temporary sanity designs / http://www.emi.net/~dmj/ dmj@emi.net / my gallery: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2605/ Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: RBarn0001@aol.com Subject: Re: (fractint) Centering problem Date: 02 Oct 1997 16:25:10 -0400 (EDT) In a message dated 97-10-02 15:43:50 EDT, you write: << Is there any way to center this fellow? --Alice >> Alice, This fractal is a Julia which does not have y axis symmetry. Since you forced symmetry with Y center not equal to zero, you image was offset. I tinkered with the par by setting the Y center to zero and changing the magnification a little. The center part of the image seems to changed a little bit. This is a really nice image. Here is the modified par: Ron Barnett ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Flying_squirrel2 { ; t= 0:00:17.14 ; On a 486 66 at 320 x 200 reset=1960 type=julfn+zsqrd function=ident passes=1 center-mag=+0.00225067000000001/+0.00061798499999999/0.6502007/0.9995 params=-0.85162353515625/0.4166107177734375 maxiter=300 bailoutest=and inside=bof60 logmap=yes symmetry=yaxis colors=Y0Azzm<5>yoRxmNxkJwiFvfD<3>qU6pR4oQ4<12>ZC5YB5W96U87T77R58<5>fRFi\ VGjXI<13>vqgwsiwsh<13>wjHwiFwiF<10>mZFlXFkWFjUEiTE<7>`HC_GBZEBXCAXCA<29>\ mZEn_FmZF<2>kWFjWEjVEjUE<7>gM9gL8gL8fK8<12>YD9XCAXDA<13>hSCiUDiUEiVEiVEj\ WFiVG<14>vqgwsiwsh<14>wiFD12A00<7>V09`0C<25>yxl } +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Jakubowicz Date: 02 Oct 1997 19:27:30 -0700 Hi, I have a possibly dumb question? Can someone tell me who GeneDeWeese is? Sorry, only kidding. What I am really wondering about is how to post a FRACTINT formula and/or parameter file. Do people somehow save them as text files and attach them to their messages? I gather they are not typed out by hand. I wld appreciate any tips, as I might be so bold as to post some for anyone interested. Also thanks for the recent answers to my question about anti-aliasing -- the signal processing analogy, I think, is quite brilliant, gives me a very good picture of the process. Thanks, Peter Jakubowicz Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 02 Oct 1997 21:46:10 -0600 Greetz wrote: > Na it must be somewhere in the instructionset. If it would be the latter > then it should occure with other software to and I'm sorry to say that only > Fractint troubles me. Sometimes non-standard hardware hangs when hardware tests are made. One strategy is to try to disable hardware tests. Have you read the "common problems in the docs"? Try these one at a time on the command line: fpu=noiit fpu=387 adapter=vga vesadetect=no Just fishing for a possible answer to your Cyrix problem. Tim Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: VRCH78B@prodigy.com (MR CHARLES F CROCKER) Subject: Re: (fractint) An interesting fractal Date: 02 Oct 1997 23:48:44, -0500 Paul said "Some copies of it got garbled in the mail system. Mine for instance came out "1e9"" Mine came out 1e9 also. That's less than half of what Fractints good for. Actually that was Jay's comment. The count skyrockets so fast that most of the high counts occur in a very narrow region and the main figure gets into a loop so fast that times are reasonable until magnification gets quite high. I am willing to accept on faith that the border will eventually breakup. As an example of how far you might have to go here are three par files for a point near the main figure and close to the obviously brokenup area. Fig1 { ; Solid high count band,almost ; P90 time 0:06:49.69 reset=1960 type=formula formulafile=dewey.frm formulaname=test97c center-mag=-0.49040957924146630/+0.05334815365641891/4.563969e+009 params=0/-1 float=y maxiter=16384 inside=40 viewwindows=4.2/0.75/yes/0/0 } Fig2 { ; Isolated dot becomes line ; P90 time 0:03:05.71 reset=1960 type=formula formulafile=dewey.frm formulaname=test97c center-mag=-0.49040957899188690/+0.05334815373397910/9.127939e+010 params=0/-1 float=y maxiter=16384 inside=40 viewwindows=4.2/0.75/yes/0/0 } Fig3 { ; Which contains other solid lines ; P90 time 0:08:00.60 reset=1960 type=formula formulafile=dewey.frm formulaname=test97c center-mag=-0.49040957899188690/+0.05334815373630590/9.127916e+011 params=0/-1 float=y maxiter=16384 inside=40 viewwindows=4.2/0.75/yes/0/0 } I set inside color to 40 to make the high count area readily apparent. This is as far as my patience lasted. Sort of like using an electron microscope to examine the road before a cross country trip. Might be a little hard to locate all the side roads. Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roelf Renkema Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 03 Oct 1997 14:43:38 +0100 Now the problem is getting weirder. Dig this.... I tried another graphic card NO DO and now I tried another processor NO DO This other proccessor came from a computer where fractint had no problem at all. I'm spooked. It can't be that the second graphic card gives also trouble could it? Its a diamond stealth 2400 with 4 mb on board. Something weird is going on. Well atleast my pc got a complete overhaul &8-) Greetz Grey -- _/_/| grey@nym,alias.net (o(o) \ ' The Wolf ' OO~~ / \--__ ,/ "I like'm sweet and wet" |/~ `-' Proud member of nl.erotiek.bdsm Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Jay Hill" Subject: Re: (fractint) An interesting fractal Date: 03 Oct 1997 11:00:33 -0700 VRCH78B wrote: >I set inside color to 40 to make the high count area readily apparent. This >is as far as my patience lasted. Sort of like using an electron microscope >to examine the road before a cross country trip. Might be a little hard to >locate all the side roads. I set your iteration limit up by a factor of 100 and find your Fig3 is not at the edge. Looking at the orbits, I see the smooth triangular interior region has period =1. Now we should be able to solve by Newton's mehtod, if need be, for the boundary and show it has smooth sides. It looks to me that only in the corners is it otherwise. My $.03 worth. Jay Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 03 Oct 1997 17:16:49 -0600 Roelf asked: > It can't be that the second graphic card gives also > trouble could it? Its a diamond stealth 2400 with 4 mb on board. Something > weird is going on. A video board could hang fractint because of the tests for video boards on runup. This can be positively checked by using the adapter=vga commandline option. If Fractint still hangs with that option it's not video. Are you positive you have a good copy of Fractint? Did you change the complete motherboard or just the CPU chip? ARe you sure the memory is OK? If you swap out *everything* it should work Tim Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: newstedclan@juno.com Subject: (fractint) Howdy! Date: 03 Oct 1997 18:14:57 -0500 Howdy! My name is Merle L. Newsted Jr. but please call me Nuke. I've had an interest in fractals for about two years. A friend lent me a copy of Mandelbrot's "Fractal geometry of Nature". out of sight! Well. I searched the web and found Fractint 19.5 about six months ago, and I 've had a lot of fun with it. Thanks . Now here is my first serious attempt at writing my own fractal. I used the tutorial for L-system fractals on the spanky web site. I made a really beautiful desktop screen for windows by running a 12 iterations (i think) and then cycling the colors till the "trunk" brown and the tips were a purpley pink "flower". Well. If anybody tries it I'd like to know what you think. later nuke)*( Fltree(with color) { ;author Nuke - My first real attempt Angle 32 Axiom +++++++++X X=<01F[@.64+++X]-F[@.29---X]@.5X } Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roelf Renkema Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 04 Oct 1997 08:41:17 +0100 Op 17:16 3-10-97 -0600 schreef Tim Wegner zoiets als: >Roelf asked: > >> It can't be that the second graphic card gives also >> trouble could it? Its a diamond stealth 2400 with 4 mb on board. Something >> weird is going on. > >A video board could hang fractint because of the tests for video >boards on runup. This can be positively checked by using the >adapter=vga commandline option. If Fractint still hangs with that >option it's not video. OK lets forget the video &8-) > >Are you positive you have a good copy of Fractint? Did you change >the complete motherboard or just the CPU chip? ARe you sure the >memory is OK? It runs on my other PC so it should be good, the archive is the one Noell stated as the right one. Ofcause I only changed the chip wouldn't make sense else now would it. Memory is just fine. ONLY THE S&%t EXE WONT RUN (starting to cry now) > >If you swap out *everything* it should work > Don't temped me! Pub is just around the corner &8-D Greetz Grey -- _/_/| grey@nym,alias.net (o(o) \ ' The Wolf ' OO~~ / \--__ ,/ "I like'm sweet and wet" |/~ `-' Proud member of nl.erotiek.bdsm Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Damien M. Jones" Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 04 Oct 1997 11:00:13 -0400 Grey, Whatever your problem with FractInt is, it's not because it doesn't work with Cyrix CPUs. I've used FractInt on Cyrix 486, 5x86, and 6x86 processors. It always ran fine. Also, I seriously doubt it's an overclocking thing. Having overclocked (or at least attempted to) every processor I've ever owned or built into a system, it's been my experience that DOS real mode programs (like FractInt) are generally the *most* reliable at higher speeds. Crashes usually occur in protected modes, like most modern games or systems like Windows. So this is almost certainly not it. This is one bizarre problem, dude. Damien M. Jones / temporary sanity designs / http://www.emi.net/~dmj/ dmj@emi.net / my gallery: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2605/ Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thierry Boudet <101355.2112@compuserve.com> Subject: Re: (fractint) Howdy! Date: 04 Oct 1997 15:48:16 -0400 Hello Nuke. I have tested your "nice flower". I like it ! I have never played with L-system, but I'm going now to try it. Only one note: may be you can put your e-mail in a comment in the formule ? And now _my_ question: why zoom fonctions are disabled in L-system ? I cant' see a technical reason, because I think that the complete image is computed in the first pass (twirlling baton) an displayed in the second pass. Is there a guru here for an explanation ? Best regards from Toulouse, France Thierry Boudet Fltree(with color) { ;author Nuke Angle 32 Axiom +++++++++X X=<01F[@.64+++X]-F[@.29---X]@.5X } Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kimjd@plu.edu Subject: Re: (fractint) Howdy! Date: 04 Oct 1997 14:15:47 -0700 (PDT) Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 04 Oct 1997 19:02:37 -0600 This is a somewhwat technical note, but if you are interested in lsystems, you might want to read it. A while ago someone here reminded us that the Lsystems image SnowFlakeColor has been broken for a long time. I traced back through my old version archives and determined that the last version of fractint that correctly rendered SnowFlakeColor was also the last version before the assembler speedups for lsystems were added. Since the Linux version of Fractint has no trouble with this fractal, and also does not use assembler, I thought this conclusively demonstarted that the bug was in the assembler. I suggested something along the lines of disabling the fast assembler. Well, it turns out I was wrong. Today I was thinking about this, and wondered if the debug=70 switch which disables the detection of a coprocessor would make lsystems use C rather rthan assembler. (See debugflag.doc for "undocumented" switches like this.) In the process of experiementing, I discovered that SnowFlakeColor worked in my personal develoiper version! It turns out tha SnowFlakeColor fails because of a shortage of stack space. Stack is the memory used to allocate space for local variables in routines. Lsystems uses a recursive algorithm, which means that the main lsystems function calls itself as the image is rendered. Each time a new call is made to the recursive function, new copies of the local variables are allocated from the stack. If the depth of recursion is too great, stack memory will run out, and the fractal will fail. I had to increase the stack memory in my personal version to get a prototype of the synchronous orbits (fractal witchcraft) routine to work. Since more stack was available, SnowFlakeColor worked! So we know what the problem is. Fixing it won't be easy, but I'll make sure SnowFlakeColor is OK for the next release. There are many trials and tribulations shoehorning more features into a conventional memory propgram like Fractint - we are constantly figuring out how to squeeze more out of limited memory. This burden will be removed eventually, but not yet. Oh yes - the fact that SnowFlakeColor broke when we added assembler was just a coincidence. I'm sure that first version that broke just had less stack space allocated than the version before. Tim Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ao950@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Derbyshire) Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 04 Oct 1997 23:24:27 -0400 (EDT) >Sometimes non-standard hardware hangs when hardware tests are made. >One strategy is to try to disable hardware tests. Have you read the >"common problems in the docs"? Of course if it hangs on startup he won't be able to reach the "common problems" help screen, except by going reading it or using makedoc on a machine where it runs ok. -- .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ao950@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Derbyshire) Subject: Re: (fractint) An interesting fractal Date: 04 Oct 1997 23:26:12 -0400 (EDT) You're telling me this guy really used 1 billion maxiter?! -- .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ao950@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Derbyshire) Subject: Re: (fractint) Howdy! Date: 04 Oct 1997 23:50:05 -0400 (EDT) > > > > Neat, concise, very compact, and no grammatical or spelling errors. However, I must take fifteen marks off for these: Your essay lacks a focus or main point, it is ambiguous and unspecific, and you don't present even one point or example or argument to support your thesis, which itself is non-existent. :-) -- .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ao950@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Derbyshire) Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 04 Oct 1997 23:54:04 -0400 (EDT) >This is a somewhwat technical note, but if you are interested in >lsystems, you might want to read it. > >A while ago someone here reminded us that the Lsystems image >SnowFlakeColor has been broken for a long time. I traced back through >my old version archives and determined that the last version of >fractint that correctly rendered SnowFlakeColor was also the last >version before the assembler speedups for lsystems were added. Since >the Linux version of Fractint has no trouble with this fractal, and >also does not use assembler, I thought this conclusively demonstarted >that the bug was in the assembler. I suggested something along the >lines of disabling the fast assembler. > >Well, it turns out I was wrong. Today I was thinking about this, and >wondered if the debug=70 switch which disables the detection of a >coprocessor would make lsystems use C rather rthan assembler. (See >debugflag.doc for "undocumented" switches like this.) In the process >of experiementing, I discovered that SnowFlakeColor worked in my >personal develoiper version! > >It turns out tha SnowFlakeColor fails because of a shortage of stack >space. Stack is the memory used to allocate space for local variables >in routines. Lsystems uses a recursive algorithm, which means that >the main lsystems function calls itself as the image is rendered. >Each time a new call is made to the recursive function, new copies of >the local variables are allocated from the stack. If the depth of >recursion is too great, stack memory will run out, and the fractal >will fail. > >I had to increase the stack memory in my personal version to get a >prototype of the synchronous orbits (fractal witchcraft) routine to >work. Since more stack was available, SnowFlakeColor worked! > >So we know what the problem is. Fixing it won't be easy, but I'll >make sure SnowFlakeColor is OK for the next release. There are many >trials and tribulations shoehorning more features into a conventional >memory propgram like Fractint - we are constantly figuring out how to >squeeze more out of limited memory. This burden will be removed >eventually, but not yet. Glad the problem has been resolved. (This of course further argues for a 32-bit version for DOS... and overclocked Cyrix chips can go hang, if 32 bit protected mode will otherwise greatly improve performance and expandability... waitaminnit...WHAT did you just say? >I had to increase the stack memory in my personal version to get a >prototype of the synchronous orbits (fractal witchcraft) routine to >work. That's what I THOUGHT you said. SYCHRONOUS ORBITS?! WOOHOO! -- .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ao950@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Derbyshire) Subject: (fractint) Mailing list is dropping letters on the floor Date: 05 Oct 1997 00:04:07 -0400 (EDT) I am copying this directly to twegner because the list copy may not make it to anyone as I shall shortly explain. Today I rapidly sent off about six articles to the list. As usual, it was a while before I received copies from the mailing list. But, I received the second, fifth, and sixth. The first, third, and fifth never made it. Clearly the list got them, because it got and sent the sixth. So it got them but didn't send them! This would seem to indicate a serious software problem somewhere at the server (xmission.com?). Fortunately, I keep carbon copies of all my outgoing mail anyways, so as soon as I become aware the problem has been rectified I shall be able to resend the three lost messages and will incur no irreperable damage at my end...unfortunately the same might not prove true for other users of the list. A software problem that eats messages without a trace, or even a bounce, and thus causes possible permanent loss of data, is serious enough that I feel it warrants being checked into at earliest convenience and at top priority, by whomever is in charge of such things at xmission... If software troubles at xmission are not something you (twegner) can directly deal with, I guess you must know who can, since you got the list set up there through somebody, and then this message should be forwarded to the appropriate technical person. Thank you... -- .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 04 Oct 1997 23:09:03 -0600 Yo Paul, > Of course if it hangs on startup he won't be able to reach the "common > problems" help screen, except by going reading it or using makedoc on a > machine where it runs ok. Of course, but our friend is able to run Fractint on other machines so can read the docs. If you think I'm being silly, I hereby assign you to the mythical "Fractint Support team" and answer the questions I get. The docs may not be the best, but 99% of the questions I spend time answering are already answered in the docs. Many issues are discussed in the "Common Problems" section. Example: one of the most common questions I get is "why does going to text mode and back corrupt my image". I'm about ready to make textsafe=save the default just to avoid seeing this question. This would mean that every time you go to text mode, your graphics screen would be saved to disk. Might be better to make the default slower and safer, and have a textsafe=no or some such for folks who know our trick for leaving the graphics image intact in video memory works on their machine. Tim Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 04 Oct 1997 23:09:03 -0600 Arrrgghhh! My "somewhwat technical note" that retracted my earlier theory was itself wrong. I'm not having a good time with this Lsys question. It turns out I have more than one sstools.ini on my system, and my developer version was picking up float=yes but my version 19.6 wasn't!!! So all that theorizing about stack was wrong. Jonathan Osuch pointed out to me that the Lsystems "SnowFlakeColor" was never broken in float mode. It's broken in integer mode. Could someone with a fast computer or a lot of patience try SnowFlakeColor at high orders such as 7 and 8, and tell me if it's OK with float=yes? I tested 6 and it worked with float=yes. It gets *really* slow at higher orders. Tim Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ao950@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Derbyshire) Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 05 Oct 1997 00:16:44 -0400 (EDT) textsafe=save is the most user friendly default. And, it will run perfectly fast if it saves to extended memory instead of disk. (c'mon NOBODY runs Fractint on machines with actually only 640K anymore! Or if they do, then it can always use disk as a fail safe if it doesn't detect enough ram. (Malloc returns null.) -- .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 04 Oct 1997 23:20:58 -0600 Paul wrote: > Glad the problem has been resolved. See my other emabaressed note on lsys. Actually, the situation is good if it's what I now think. Just use float=yes and all is well. Snowflakecolor is only broken in integer mode, which doesn't bother me. Lots of things don't work in integer mode. > That's what I THOUGHT you said. SYCHRONOUS ORBITS?! WOOHOO! I have Synchronous Orbits working just fine in a long double version in my version. But synchronous orbits is only useful for very deep zooms right at the limit of double precision. Using long double gives an extra three orders of magnitude, but the fun won't really start until we port Synchronous Orbits to arbitrary precsion. I'm really looking forward to that. For those who don't know, the Synchronous Orbits algorithm is a huge speedup for certain deep zoomed fractals. It works by flying a number of orbits "in formation" and detecting when they start to get out of formation. The algorithm then subdivides and continues with a smaller formation, continuing until the subdivision process reaches the pixel level. This can save an enormous amount of time, because up to the point of subdivsion, the iterations of all the points inside the formation have been saved. For deep zooms this can be thousands of iterations for thousands of pixels. It's not clear how well Synchronous orbits will work with other than mandelbrot and Julia, but I'm planning on implementing it generally, at least for the types supporting arbitrary precision. Tim > > > -- > .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] > -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" > `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] > Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List > Post Message: fractint@xmission.com > Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" > Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net > Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" > > Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 04 Oct 1997 23:25:07 -0600 Paul suggested: Paul wrote: > textsafe=save is the most user friendly default. And, it will run > perfectly fast if it saves to extended memory instead of disk. Actually, that's a good idea. Jonathan Osuch added the needed functions to use extended memory in just that way. That's a good application of his functions, I'll look into it. Tim Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ao950@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Derbyshire) Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug? Date: 05 Oct 1997 00:31:34 -0400 (EDT) > >Paul suggested: >Paul wrote: > >> textsafe=save is the most user friendly default. And, it will run >> perfectly fast if it saves to extended memory instead of disk. > >Actually, that's a good idea. Jonathan Osuch added the needed >functions to use extended memory in just that way. That's a good >application of his functions, I'll look into it. > >Tim Don't forget disk-video modes. They use disk or ram as optimal. Probably textsafe=save can be implemented essentially the same way. For that matter it's a fact that RAM accesses faster than video, so normal video fractals perhaps could compute to RAM and be updated to screen on a timer, say every half second? The speedup might be noticeable. Faster fractals on faster machines the bottleneck might be video writes and bank switching, although for slower fractals or slower machines, where you see a pixel... twenty seconds later a pixel... it won't matter a whit. -- .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: VRCH78B@prodigy.com (MR CHARLES F CROCKER) Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 13:50:37, -0500 Here is the result of my survey of the Lsystem SnowFlakeColor with a Pentium 90. Res Math Order 640X480 FP 5 0:34.00 640X480 INT 5 0:33.56 Few missing pieces 640X480 INT 6 4:05.36 Considerable missing 640X480 FP 6 7:11.11 1280X1024 FP 6 7:05.73 1280X1024 FP 5 34.44 1280X1024 INT 5 33.78 Missing pieces. Doesn't fit screen. 1280X1024 INT 4 3.46 Top off screen by 4 or 5 pixels. 1280X1024 INT 3 1.16 Complete. 1280X1024 FP 7 1:32:13.58 It doesn't seem that keeping integer is worthwhile. Exactly what is happening isn't clear to me. As the order goes up the figure gets progressively bigger missing pieces and more outside of the screen. The plotting seems to progress normally but random pieces get skipped. If you want to see the structure order 5 is about as high as necessary with ordinary displays. Changing the pallet to Rainbow and making the background black pleases me. The order 7 figure then is then colored pink mush. Charles Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: newstedclan@juno.com Subject: Re: (fractint) Howdy! Date: 04 Oct 1997 15:47:02 -0500 Hi, Thierry (pronounced th-ear-ee?) I guess I could put my e-mail message in the formula, but why? As far as the zooming feature is concerned: I'm certainly no expert but if you look at a L-system fractal carefully, you will probably be able to predict what the "zoomed" result will look like: exactly what the normal 100% view will be! To see what I mean, pick any L-system fractal and start with 1itereation and look carefully at the result. Then use a 2 iteration, then 3, then 4 and so on. I think that you will see why a zooming feature in these types of fractals is unneccesary. On Sat, 4 Oct 1997 15:48:16 -0400 Thierry Boudet <101355.2112@compuserve.com> writes: > Hello Nuke. > >I have tested your "nice flower". I like it ! >I have never played with L-system, but I'm going now >to try it. Only one note: may be you can put your >e-mail in a comment in the formule ? > >And now _my_ question: why zoom fonctions are >disabled in L-system ? I cant' see a technical >reason, because I think that the complete image >is computed in the first pass (twirlling baton) >an displayed in the second pass. Is there a >guru here for an explanation ? > > Best regards from Toulouse, France > > Thierry Boudet > >------------------------------------ >Fltree(with color) { ;author Nuke > Angle 32 > Axiom +++++++++X > X=<01F[@.64+++X]-F[@.29---X]@.5X > } >------------------------------------ > > >------------------------------------------------------------ >Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List >Post Message: fractint@xmission.com >Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" >Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net >Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" > Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thierry Boudet <101355.2112@compuserve.com> Subject: Re: (fractint) Howdy! Date: 05 Oct 1997 14:47:36 -0400 > I'm certainly no expert but > if you look at a L-system fractal carefully, you will probably > be able to predict what the "zoomed" result will look like: > exactly what the normal 100% view will be! May be, may be, me to, I'm not an expert. But in Fractint, the zoom fonctions are not only for "deep zzzzoooom", but can rotating, panning, modifying aspect ratio and 'skewing' your image. It work great for IFS. Why not for L-systems ? Think a little about it. Best regards. Thierry. Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 15:03:36 -0600 Charles Crocker wrote: > Here is the result of my survey of the Lsystem SnowFlakeColor with a > Pentium 90. Thanks for testing. I know SnowFlakecolor is broken in integer mode. Looking at your results, all the float=yes cases were OK. All the remains might be for some patient soul to try orders 7 and 8. I'm not surprised, nor does it bother me, that the integer math SnowFlakeColor is broken. Anyone with a pentium should use float=yes in sstools.ini and make it the default. It's true that fractint made a name for itself with integer math, but that dates back to a trime when most PCs did not have coprocessors, and coprocessors were slower. With each chip generation, floating point performance inches closer to integer math. Thanks again for your benchmarks. Silly of me to have forgotten that SnowFlakeColor works fine with float=yes. Tim Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Benno Schmid" Subject: Re: (fractint) Boundary is partially right! Date: 05 Oct 1997 14:28:53 +100 Justin wrote: > Note: I tried to send this directly to you, Benno, but the mail got > returned with > some strange error message, which follows: I have checked out all of my adresses as soon I returned from Verona and they worked fine, so I can't imagine what has happened. > > Yes, I got the files. I checked them out, and IMHO, they actually do > resemble > the border of the twindragon curve, except that the resulting curve is > actually > like one straight segment of the border of the twindragon instead of > being the > entire closed border. Justin, You're right, and although I could not believe it first, Mandelbrot's construction _is_ a part of the twin dragon border. It is in particular the line binding the two smaller copies of the dragon together. So the whole border is made up upon copies of the "skin" curve. I have not found out how many, perhaps even infinite, but the dimensions are certainly identical. > I've tried to manipulate the L-system version to make > it close, but it is difficult when I don't acually have the picture of > the original twindragon in front of me. Why don't you just print it out? > > Anyway, if I can get it to work, I'll > post it and anyone else who has any interest can check it out for > themselves. Please keep me noticed what you have found out. Benno Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Damien M. Jones" Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 16:38:39 -0400 Tim, - Thanks for testing. I know SnowFlakecolor is broken in integer mode. - Looking at your results, all the float=yes cases were OK. All the - remains might be for some patient soul to try orders 7 and 8. I can run these tonight on my Pentium-166. (Finally replaced my Cyrix with an Intel... hoo boy does FractInt like having a fast FPU!) Order 6 worked fine in float mode here, too. - With each chip generation, floating point performance inches - closer to integer math. Now there's an understatement. :) Pentiums are faster at floating-point than integer for anything that is multiply-intensive (like fractals). 22.3 for float vs. 26.8 for integer mode, M-set zoom near the top circle, maxiter=1000. As the iterations increase, so does the speed benefit for floating-point. Even the initial M-set image is slightly faster on the FPU. Damien M. Jones / temporary sanity designs / http://www.emi.net/~dmj/ dmj@emi.net / my gallery: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2605/ Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 15:55:10 -0600 Damien said: > Now there's an understatement. :) Pentiums are faster at floating-point > than integer for anything that is multiply-intensive (like fractals). 22.3 > for float vs. 26.8 for integer mode, M-set zoom near the top circle, > maxiter=1000. As the iterations increase, so does the speed benefit for > floating-point. Even the initial M-set image is slightly faster on the FPU. For this I reason I have the following "modest proposal" (don't worry, I'm not going to do this instantly, still thinking ) I want to rip out all integer code from Fractint. My reasons are 1. It is getting harder and harder to add new features to Fractint because of resource limitations. Removing all the integer code would greatly simplify things by suddenly reducing the size and complexity of Fractint. 2. When we do move to a 32 bit environment, we will have to remove integer code anyway. The integer math code is written in assembler, and not just any assembler, but medium model assembler. This code won't port easily to any other environment. Note that Xfract already supports only floating point. There are only two arguments I can think of against this. 1. There are still millions of older machines around the world without FPUs. The most recent use the 486SX chips. (I think that is a weak argument as time goes by.) 2. Artists have a huge number of images that depend on artifacts of integer math. There's no good answer to this except "keep your old copy of Fractint". I'd like comments on this. Robin Bussell's "Fractint Wish List" web page has a number of pleas to "please don't kill the DOS version of Fractint". If removing integer math extended the life of the DOS fractint would folks be for it? Removing integer math would not necessarily slow getting ports of Fractint for newer environments. What do folks think? Tim Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: newstedclan@juno.com Subject: Re: (fractint) Howdy! Date: 05 Oct 1997 16:04:41 -0500 Hey Thierry, I'm not familiar with any of the other possiblities for the zooming features. I'll have to check it out. Can somebody help with this one: How do you set the default file in L=-system, and Formula types? Plus- Is there a way to have Fractint start at a particular fractal type, and automatically set the video, selct the file etc.. And if you tell me to use the batch mode please explain a little to get me started. (is batch mode in Factint like a batch file in DOS?) On Sun, 5 Oct 1997 14:47:36 -0400 Thierry Boudet <101355.2112@compuserve.com> writes: >> I'm certainly no expert but >> if you look at a L-system fractal carefully, you will probably >> be able to predict what the "zoomed" result will look like: >> exactly what the normal 100% view will be! > > May be, may be, me to, I'm not an expert. But in >Fractint, the zoom fonctions are not only for "deep zzzzoooom", >but can rotating, panning, modifying aspect ratio and 'skewing' >your image. It work great for IFS. Why not for L-systems ? > > Think a little about it. > Best regards. > Thierry. > > >------------------------------------------------------------ >Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List >Post Message: fractint@xmission.com >Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" >Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net >Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" > Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ijk@sas.upenn.edu (Ian J Kaplan) Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 17:10:11 -0400 (EDT) Tim Wegner wrote: > > > I want to rip out all integer code from Fractint. My reasons are > > 1. It is getting harder and harder to add new features to Fractint > because of resource limitations. Removing all the integer code would > greatly simplify things by suddenly reducing the size and complexity > of Fractint. > Having not looked at the source I don't know how complicated this would prove, but would it be possible and feasible to isolate out the integer optimizations? Maybe there's an int=yes flag that redirects things to a giant block of integer code... presumably this would give a less tightly optimized result when running integer math, but it would let the world's 486sx owners continue, and preserve the usefullness of old artifact images. It's worth remembering that while few serious fractal lovers are still stuck on a non-FPU processor in this country, that's less true in many other parts of the world, at least judging by what I've seen on this listserv. On the other hand, it would be relatively trivial to keep the last integer version availible. I'd have to say that if there's a relatively simple way to preserve integer math as a sort of module, great, but otherwise we may as well move ahead... becuase it will make the rest of fractint development much faster and much more portable, really. Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: aq936@freenet.carleton.ca (Michael Traynor) Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 17:13:54 -0400 (EDT) Tim Wegner wrote: >I want to rip out all integer code from Fractint. My reasons are > Go for it! ... > >There are only two arguments I can think of against this. > >1. There are still millions of older machines around the world >without FPUs. The most recent use the 486SX chips. This makes me feel better about my 486DX. (I have a pentium 166 at work, a government job. I don't need it for anything I do at work, and it attracks thieves - one of them, on my machine alone, has already been stolen - but it sure is nice for fractals. I need to justify the expenditure of tax dollars on the damn thing somehow.) > >2. Artists have a huge number of images that depend on artifacts of >integer math. > >There's no good answer to this except "keep your old copy of >Fractint". With the recent efforts to make sure all the old versions are archived, this is not really a flippant answer at all. -- Mike Traynor People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like. Abraham Lincoln Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rich Thomson Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 15:04:07 -0600 I say ditch the integer math and let people know that the DOS-only version of fractint has a limited lifespan. Perhaps one more major release and then that's it. If people are stuck with old machines (some of my friends are) or don't want to use a windowing environment (again, some of my friends are like that), then they should use the last DOS release of fractint. Which I would imagine would be something like rev 20.x. Trying to support both DOS and windowed environments from the same code base is a problem we've discussed often and it is just such a huge pain. I think that 20 releases under DOS is pretty damn impressive! Retiring fractint from DOS would make adding new features to the code SO much easier that people might actually do it more often :) -- ``Between stimulus and response is the will to choose.'' -- Steven Covey =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 3D Paint: The Power to Create in 3D; Rich Thomson email me for more info rthomson@ptc.com Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Justin Kolodziej <4wg7kolodzie@vms.csd.mu.edu> Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 18:07:17 -0500 >Could someone with a fast computer or a lot of patience try >SnowFlakeColor at high orders such as 7 and 8, and tell me if it's >OK with float=yes? I tested 6 and it worked with float=yes. It gets >*really* slow at higher orders. I've tried order 7, and it worked (at least as far as I ran it- I accidentally pushed a fn key as I was running it, and wiped it out most of the way through -- GRRR! ) Anyway, I'll run order 8 overnight tonight, and let you know the results tomorrow ( if it's finished by then on my Pentium Pro 180 ;) ) Justin --no cool signature :( -- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: henry birdseye Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 20:07:10 -0400 (EDT) On Sun, 5 Oct 1997, Rich Thomson wrote: > > I say ditch the integer math and let people know that the DOS-only > version of fractint has a limited lifespan. Perhaps one more major If Fractint for Win could do batch animations then go for it. But my experience is that DOSFract is extremely fast and I use it for batch zooming animation all the time. ----------------- Henry S. Birdseye Video Compositing Artist, Fractal Zoomer, Raytracer, Film Collector, Techno Head, .net addict www.mich.com/~ozymand www.prodcolor.com Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Justin Kolodziej <4wg7kolodzie@vms.csd.mu.edu> Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 19:19:52 -0500 >What do folks think? >Tim I think as long as DOS lives, there should be a DOS version of Fractint, for the main reason that it seems a lot easier to develop for DOS than for Windows 95. I could be wrong, but I have been able to produce a Mandelbrot program for DOS that doesn't even put Fractint 2 to shame (no interactive zooming, no speedups, but automatic 1024x768 resolution) using Visual C++ 1.52, but I don't even know how to get started using Windows 3.1 with version 1.52 or Windows 95 using 4.0! You guys must have been super programmers to even produce a Windows version in the first place--or is it somehow easier with non-Visual C? BTW, the source code for Fractint won't compile with VC++1.52. I haven't tried Winfract yet. I wanted to add colors for truecolor mode, but 1) I don't know where to find the limit for the maximum colors and 2) It wouldn't compile anyway. Justin -- no cool signature :( -- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Francois Blais Subject: Re: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 21:51:36 +0800 At 10/5/97 3:03:00 PM, Tim Wegner wrote: >Thanks for testing. I know SnowFlakecolor is broken in integer mode. >Looking at your results, all the float=yes cases were OK. All the >remains might be for some patient soul to try orders 7 and 8. On my 486 DX-50, at 640x480, (float=yes) SnowFlake took about 5 minutes at order 7, and about 20 minutes at order 8. (about 10 minutes to compute and the same time to render) Hope this helps. -- La voix de ma contrebasse * Quebec City - Canada Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: e-j-h@juno.com (Evan J Hall) Subject: Re: (fractint) dmj-pub.frm Date: 05 Oct 1997 20:53:46 -0500 Since my e-mail service doesn't have a file send/recieve function, I wasn't able to use this par file for a while, but I now have a mime decoder, and I decoded it and attempted to look at the fractals. Unfortunately, I got errors such as "Undefined Function", "Need More ')', and "')' needs a matching '('. I haven't been able to fix these errors and I'm beginning to wonder if I need a different version of Fractint. Please help! + | :)Evan Hall | e-j-h@juno.com | My other computer is a Commodore 64 +---------------------------------------+ On Wed, 17 Sep 1997 15:32:08 -0400 "Damien M. Jones" writes: >--=====================_874539128==_ >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >Howdy folks, > >Attached to this message is a formula file containing all the new >coloring >algorithms I have made for FractInt, for both the Mandelbrot set and >the >NovaM fractal. Many of these are variations on orbit trap types; a >few are >based on formulae Kerry Mitchell posted here recently. There are over >100 >different formulae in this file. Details as to what each formula does >are >contained in the "dmj--Read-Me-First" formula which will be the first >one >listed. Although I have only provided versions of the algorithms for >Mandelbrot and NovaM types, instructions are included on how to adapt >the >techniques to other types. Each formula is extensively commented as >well. > >Lee Skinner asked for example PARs to show some of what is possible. >I >have forty or so images produced with these formulae (and a few other >formulae that aren't ready for "prime time") so I don't really want to >post >PARs for all of them here. I hope to have most of them up on my web >gallery later today. Here are six, though, to show you what is >possible >with these techniques: (Files snipped) Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Sean (and/or) Jaqueline" Subject: Re: (fractint) Serious Fractint 19.6 bug! Date: 05 Oct 1997 20:20:39 -0600 (MDT) On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, NOEL_GIFFIN wrote: > On the other hand, is it possible that when you unzipped the > new version of fractint, you might have used the option not to overwrite > existing versions of certain files, or as my previous note suggested, were > you one of the eager ones that picked up fractint from spanky in the > first day or two before the official release announcement? Nope. Until I downloaded 19.6 from Spanky, I hadn't had a copy of Fractint on this particular machine. And nope. I downloaded 19.6 (the first time) in July or August. But I have a theory. If one converts the version number "19.6" to alphabetic characters in the following manner (1=A, 2=B, 3=C...) the program is then renamed "Fractint SF." The reference to Science Fiction in the version number is an obvious clue. I hesitate to say any more, lest I'm silenced. --- * Brought to you by Sean and/or Jaq, and their 18 cats: * Crystal, Sputnik, Venus, Berkeley * Tinker, Evers, Chance, * Crosby, Stills, Nash, * Tigger, Pooh, Piglet, * Orion, Cursa, Spica, Polaris, and Atria. [And yes, we have children, too. Can't remember their names, though.] Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 21:29:15 -0600 Justin said: > I think as long as DOS lives, there should be a DOS version of Fractint, for > the main reason that it seems a lot easier to develop for DOS than for > Windows 95. I wasn't proposing killing the DOS version; quite the contrary, I was proposing to extend its life by eliminating integer math, thereby making room for growth. Think of fractint for DOS as a turtle that grows inside a shell that doesn't. Get's kinda tight inside the shell I'm proposing to surgically remove half the turtle to create some room for new stuff inside the fixed shell. Kinda a bad metaphor, but I guess it will do > BTW, the source code for Fractint won't compile with VC++1.52. I've lost track of version numbers, but the newest VC++'s don't even come with a conventional memory compiler. Fractint does compile fine with the last conventional memory compiler Microsoft made. It won't compile with any compiler that targets only Windows. Tim Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 21:29:15 -0600 Just a word folks. Remember that nontechnical messages are most welcome on this list along with technical ones. This note is technical, but don't be scared away if it's over your head. You're still welcome here. Rich said: > I say ditch the integer math and let people know that the DOS-only > version of fractint has a limited lifespan. > ... > Trying to support both DOS and windowed > environments from the same code base is a problem we've discussed > often and it is just such a huge pain. Let me suggest an alternative. What is a pain is *not* supporting DOS and Windowing environments together, but supporting the medium memory model and flat memory models together. If the integer math were removed from Fractint, and Fractint were ported to djgpp (the extended DOS GNU C compiler) then the DOS version could live for as long as DOS lives. That's because djgpp is a 32 bit flat memory model environment. Most code that compiles under djgpp will also compile under Linux or Unix or Win95. We could easily maintain a core of portable code and everyone would be happy. A djgpp-compiled Fractint would run on a 386 with plenty of memory. It would be slower than the old Fractint until we got the floating point assembler ported. Very possibly the assembler could work under Linux also. It's not hard to bolt a windowing environment on top of the DOS Fractint (Bert Tyler proved that). The problem is that current windowing environments are 32 bit. Of course I'm assuming we could do a major reorgaization of the underlying engine to isolate it from the GUI. The one sad thing about this is that most of Bert Tyler's original contribution would be gone if we did this - the integer math and the video. However we might be able to port the video to djgpp (maybe Bert could even be dragged out of retirement to do this), but it might be easier to use existing video libraries. Tim Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Sean (and/or) Jaqueline" Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 05 Oct 1997 21:16:58 -0600 (MDT) On Sun, 5 Oct 1997, Tim Wegner wrote: > I want to rip out all integer code from Fractint. . . . > > There's no good answer to this except "keep your old copy of > Fractint". > > I'd like comments on this. . . . What do folks think? Go for it. I run Fractint on a 386DX-33, and still I say go for it. About the only objection I can think of is that "Fractfloat" sounds silly. But, realistically, who can say that "Fractint" sounds any better? - Sean --- * Brought to you by Sean and/or Jaq, and their 18 cats: * Crystal, Sputnik, Venus, Berkeley * Tinker, Evers, Chance, * Crosby, Stills, Nash, * Tigger, Pooh, Piglet, * Orion, Cursa, Spica, Polaris, and Atria. [And yes, we have children, too. Can't remember their names, though.] Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ao950@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Derbyshire) Subject: (fractint) Weird Date: 06 Oct 1997 01:11:28 -0400 (EDT) Shouldn't the mailing list intercept bounces instead of forwarding them to every darned user? >To: SMTP@PTLNORWOOD3@Servers[], twegner@MIS.Corp@PTLNORWOOD >Cc: >Subject: Mailing list is dropping letters on the floor > >Message not delivered to recipients below. Press F1 for help with VNM >error codes. > > VNM3042: twegner@MIS.Corp@PTLNORWOOD > > > >VNM3042 -- NAME NOT FOUND > > Mail cannot deliver the message for one of the > following reasons: the appropriate StreetTalk is not > available; the recipient's user name was deleted; the > recipient's name was not entered correctly. Verify > the accuracy of the name entered. If the name you > entered is a user name, check to see if the user was > deleted. If the name is correct and the user exists, > check the connections between the recipient and > the sender. > > You may see this error if you send a message to a list, > but one of the names on the list is incorrect or invalid. > Anytime a user is deleted, that user name must be > removed from all lists that contain the name. > >---------------------- Original Message Follows ---------------------- > > >I am copying this directly to twegner because the list copy may not make >it to anyone as I shall shortly explain. > >Today I rapidly sent off about six articles to the list. As usual, it was >a while before I received copies from the mailing list. But, I received >the second, fifth, and sixth. The first, third, and fifth never made it. >Clearly the list got them, because it got and sent the sixth. So it got >them but didn't send them! This would seem to indicate a serious software >problem somewhere at the server (xmission.com?). Fortunately, I keep >carbon copies of all my outgoing mail anyways, so as soon as I become >aware the problem has been rectified I shall be able to resend the three >lost messages and will incur no irreperable damage at my >end...unfortunately the same might not prove true for other users of the list. >A software problem that eats messages without a trace, or even a bounce, >and thus causes possible permanent loss of data, is serious enough that I >feel it warrants being checked into at earliest convenience and at top >priority, by whomever is in charge of such things at xmission... > >If software troubles at xmission are not something you (twegner) can >directly deal with, I guess you must know who can, since you got the list >set up there through somebody, and then this message should be forwarded >to the appropriate technical person. >Thank you... > > >-- > .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] > -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" > `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] >Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh > > > -- .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ao950@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Derbyshire) Subject: (fractint) Ditching ints and ditching DOS Date: 06 Oct 1997 01:22:25 -0400 (EDT) I say ditch ints. I say keep DOS. It is easy to program DOS and windowing versions of the same app. What you have to do is create your own windowing frontend. A DOS version that does windowing itself (I'm working on such a thing myself for DJGPP.) A Windows version that just inline-calls functions in the windows API (interface is the same). X-Windows ditto. Macintrash(!) ditto. Thus, the only piece of code that'd have to change between environments would be the windowing stuff. It would be in a source file for each environment, the makefile would detect the environment (pre-processor flags; for example _DJGPP_ is defined in DJGPP, _Gnu_CC_ in all gnu implementations, and so forth. Or something similar anyways. It'd compile the other sources and the appropriate windowing source and link them into a binary for the platform. -- .*. Where feelings are concerned, answers are rarely simple [GeneDeWeese] -() < When I go to the theater, I always go straight to the "bag and mix" `*' bulk candy section...because variety is the spice of life... [me] Paul Derbyshire ao950@freenet.carleton.ca, http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Damien M. Jones" Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 06 Oct 1997 02:02:34 -0400 Justin, - I think as long as DOS lives, there should be a DOS version of Fractint, - for the main reason that it seems a lot easier to develop for DOS than for - Windows 95. Well, that really depends on how you look at it. They are two different environments, two entirely different approaches to writing software. There are advantages to writing software for Windows that may not be entirely obvious. Yes, there is a lot more to know (like the Windows API and/or MFC) but there is also a lot you don't *have* to know, like writing video drivers. - I could be wrong, but I have been able to produce a Mandelbrot - program for DOS that doesn't even put Fractint 2 to shame (no interactive - zooming, no speedups, but automatic 1024x768 resolution) using Visual C++ - 1.52, but I don't even know how to get started using Windows 3.1 with - version 1.52 or Windows 95 using 4.0! You guys must have been super - programmers to even produce a Windows version in the first place--or is it - somehow easier with non-Visual C? I'd certainly have to say writing Windows programs without some sort of high-level development tool like MS Visual C++ or Borland C++ is masochistic. You can do it, but it's more work than not. The main issue, though, is that you just don't write a windowed app in *any* operating system the same way you write a DOS program where you control the whole machine. As I pointed out, it's a different approach to programming. If you're used to writing DOS apps, Windows programming can seem very foreign. I don't think doing WinFract required more genius than writing the original FractInt, but that's just my personal opinion. - BTW, the source code for Fractint won't compile with VC++1.52. Hardly surprising, VC++ 1.52 really isn't designed for writing DOS apps. And any version after 1.52c is strictly 32-bit; although the latest versions have a "console app", this is actually a 32-bit console thingie rather than a DOS compiler. Damien M. Jones / temporary sanity designs / http://www.emi.net/~dmj/ dmj@emi.net / my gallery: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2605/ Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Damien M. Jones" Subject: Re: (fractint) dmj-pub.frm Date: 05 Oct 1997 23:53:19 -0400 Evan, - Since my e-mail service doesn't have a file send/recieve function, I - wasn't able to use this par file for a while, but I now have a mime - decoder, and I decoded it and attempted to look at the fractals. This actually isn't part of your e-mail service, but the software *you* use to fetch and read your mail. Using a program like Eudora, Netscape Mail, or MS Internet Mail will decode attached MIME files automatically. (And no doubt most other software will, too.) If you are having trouble with the file, you can obtain the original here: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2605/misc/dmj-pub.zip - Unfortunately, I got errors such as "Undefined Function", "Need More ')', - and "')' needs a matching '('. I haven't been able to fix these errors - and I'm beginning to wonder if I need a different version of Fractint. I used a lot of IF...ENDIF constructs in this file, so you will need FractInt 19.6 to use it. Some (perhaps all) of what I did could be done without using the IF...ENDIF, but it would have been slower and a lot more cumbersome to read. As long as I'm talking about it, I have a new version (1.1) of this file that I will be posting tomorrow. This will contain a few minor fixes, a few new coloring schemes, and a PAR file that will make it a whole lot easier to get started browsing these new coloring algorithms (plus plenty of examples). Damien M. Jones / temporary sanity designs / http://www.emi.net/~dmj/ dmj@emi.net / my gallery: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2605/ Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ijk@sas.upenn.edu (Ian J Kaplan) Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 06 Oct 1997 09:22:05 -0400 (EDT) I'd have to agree with Damien's comments. Of course, redesigning fractint as modular and portable will add a few names to the top of the credits list; someone needs a LOT of time on their hands... Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rich Thomson Subject: (fractint) Re: the death of DOS fractint Date: 06 Oct 1997 10:18:49 -0600 In article , henry birdseye writes: > If Fractint for Win could do batch animations then go for it. But my > experience is that DOSFract is extremely fast and I use it for batch > zooming animation all the time. I don't see any reason why a windows version of fractint couldn't do batch operations just as fast. In fact, since the code would be moved entirely to a 32-bit instruction base, it might even go faster. -- ``Between stimulus and response is the will to choose.'' -- Steven Covey =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 3D Paint: The Power to Create in 3D; Rich Thomson email me for more info rthomson@ptc.com Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rich Thomson Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor Date: 06 Oct 1997 10:21:13 -0600 Justin Kolodziej <4wg7kolodzie@vmsb.csd.mu.edu> writes: > I think as long as DOS lives, there should be a DOS version of Fractint, for > the main reason that it seems a lot easier to develop for DOS than for > Windows 95. Its the reverse, actually. The DOS version suffers from so many memory management hassles that its nearly impossible to add new code or algorithms with any significant memory usage. > I could be wrong, but I have been able to produce a Mandelbrot > program for DOS that doesn't even put Fractint 2 to shame (no interactive > zooming, no speedups, but automatic 1024x768 resolution) using Visual C++ > 1.52, but I don't even know how to get started using Windows 3.1 with > version 1.52 or Windows 95 using 4.0! The visually oriented tools (especially C++ tools) now are eliminating much of the drudgery of writing windows applications, letting you focus on the problem at hand. However, writing a small mandelbrot program under DOS is totally different from trying to add something to the existing code base of fractint. -- ``Between stimulus and response is the will to choose.'' -- Steven Covey =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 3D Paint: The Power to Create in 3D; Rich Thomson email me for more info rthomson@ptc.com Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Perry Subject: (fractint) Problems under Solaris Date: 06 Oct 1997 12:36:48 -0500 (CDT) I'm trying to compile the latest xfractint for UNIX under Solaris 2.5 using gcc 2.7.2. At link time I'm getting a bunch of messages similar to: bigflt.o(.text+0x4b18): undefined reference to `_fmemmove' bigflt.o: In function `scale_10': bigflt.o(.text+0x55b0): undefined reference to `_fmemmove' bigflt.o(.text+0x57bc): more undefined references to `_fmemmove' follow biginit.o: In function `init_big_pi': biginit.o(.text+0x1ae4): undefined reference to `_fmemcpy' bignum.o: In function `convert_bn': bignum.o(.text+0x324): undefined reference to `_fmemcpy' bignum.o(.text+0x394): undefined reference to `_fmemcpy' bignum.o: In function `unsafe_div_bn': bignum.o(.text+0x16b4): undefined reference to `_fmemmove' bignum.o(.text+0x16c8): undefined reference to `_fmemset' bignum.o(.text+0x16f0): undefined reference to `_fmemmove' bignum.o(.text+0x1704): undefined reference to `_fmemset' bignum.o(.text+0x17ac): undefined reference to `_fmemmove' bignum.o(.text+0x17d8): undefined reference to `_fmemset' bignum.o(.text+0x182c): undefined reference to `_fmemmove' bignum.o(.text+0x1840): undefined reference to `_fmemset' bignumc.o: In function `clear_bf': bignumc.o(.text+0x29c4): undefined reference to `_fmemset' and on and on... Any help would be greatly appreciated! John Perry - perry@texmicro.com Texas Microsystems (713) 541-8200 Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Justin Kolodziej <4wg7kolodzie@vms.csd.mu.edu> Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor (not anymore) Date: 06 Oct 1997 12:39:21 -0500 -----Original Message----- Hardly surprising, VC++ 1.52 really isn't designed for writing DOS apps. And any version after 1.52c is strictly 32-bit; although the latest versions have a "console app", this is actually a 32-bit console thingie rather than a DOS compiler. So, are you saying that I should have bought Borland C++ instead of Visual C++ 4.0 (which includes 1.52)? Or does that also have the same backwards compatibility problem (which is, there is none?!) Justin Kolodziej "I only use Windows because: 1. Solaris isn't available for PC's :( 2. I can't afford a SUN and I'd have to buy a server :( :( :( 3. When's the last time YOU saw an X-Windows (or LINUX) app in your local software store?! ;)" Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ijk@sas.upenn.edu (Ian J Kaplan) Subject: Re: (fractint) Problems under Solaris Date: 06 Oct 1997 13:46:58 -0400 (EDT) John Perry wrote: > > I'm trying to compile the latest xfractint for UNIX under Solaris 2.5 > using gcc 2.7.2. At link time I'm getting a bunch of messages similar to: > > bigflt.o(.text+0x4b18): undefined reference to `_fmemmove' ... > and on and on... Any help would be greatly appreciated! > I guess suggesting you run Linux instead of Solaris wouldn't constitute help... :) Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rich Thomson Subject: Re: (fractint) Problems under Solaris Date: 06 Oct 1997 11:51:53 -0600 In article , John Perry writes: > I'm trying to compile the latest xfractint for UNIX under Solaris 2.5 > using gcc 2.7.2. At link time I'm getting a bunch of messages similar to: Check the configuration header files; specifically port.h which defines the following macros: #define _fmemcpy memcpy #define _fmemset memset #define _fmemmove memmove They should be defined for xfractint. -- ``Between stimulus and response is the will to choose.'' -- Steven Covey =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 3D Paint: The Power to Create in 3D; Rich Thomson email me for more info rthomson@ptc.com Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Justin Kolodziej <4wg7kolodzie@vms.csd.mu.edu> Subject: Re: (fractint) SnowFlakeColor (not anymore) Date: 06 Oct 1997 16:11:36 -0500 -----Original Message----- Justin Kolodziej <4wg7kolodzie@vmsb.csd.mu.edu> writes: > I think as long as DOS lives, there should be a DOS version of Fractint, for > the main reason that it seems a lot easier to develop for DOS than for > Windows 95. Its the reverse, actually. The DOS version suffers from so many memory management hassles that its nearly impossible to add new code or algorithms with any significant memory usage. > I could be wrong, but I have been able to produce a Mandelbrot > program for DOS that doesn't even put Fractint 2 to shame (no interactive > zooming, no speedups, but automatic 1024x768 resolution) using Visual C++ > 1.52, but I don't even know how to get started using Windows 3.1 with > version 1.52 or Windows 95 using 4.0! The visually oriented tools (especially C++ tools) now are eliminating much of the drudgery of writing windows applications, letting you focus on the problem at hand. However, writing a small mandelbrot program under DOS is totally different from trying to add something to the existing code base of fractint. -- end of original message -- OK, OK, I admit it! I'm not even a novice programmer, so of course programming for Windows seems impossible. I can, however, see your point about visual tools making it easier to porgram the problem at hand (no more programming the user interface!) and DOS being impossible to manage memory with (I suppose using protected mode makes it worse). I guess where I get lost is where the program gets segmented into classes, header files and the like. Maybe I'll learn how to do that stuff in my programming class next semester, but seeing that we'll use QuickC, I doubt it... Of course, I could take extra programming classes and minor in computer science to go with my major in electrical and computer engineering, but by then the feature I want to add to Fractint (TRUE COLOR) will probably have been added! Like Bob Dole says, "I just can't win!" Justin Kolodziej "I only use Windows because: 1. Solaris isn't available for PC's :( 2. I can't afford a SUN and I'd have to buy a server :( :( :( 3. When's the last time YOU saw an X-Windows (or LINUX) app in your local software store?! ;)" Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jason Hine Subject: (fractint) CALCWAIT w/Truecolor=yes? Date: 06 Oct 1997 15:41:13 -0600 (MDT) Howdy all, I'm making significant progress on my (not so) little program to allow unattended zooming with fractint; there are only a few bugs to work out before I throw the source and exec up on my web page for you all to break! One of these bugs is that FractInt's CALCWAIT autokeyword doesn't seem to work when truecolor=yes is specified... I am playing around with throwing some extra time in after the fractal is rendered (using the WAIT keyword), but so far, I've been unsuccessful in creating a Targa file from an autokey file... that is, one that's not corrupt. If anyone is able to accomplish this, please let me know/show me your autokey file... I'll keep working on it, too. Thanks for any help, Jason (Spidey) Hine _ __ ___ ____ _____ ______ _______ ______ _____ ____ ___ __ _ _ __ ___ ___ __ _ _ __ ___ Jason N Hine ___ __ _ _ __ ___ GIS Specialist ___ __ _ _ __ ___ Colorado State University ___ __ _ _ __ ___ Pedology and Soil Information Systems Lab ___ __ _ _ __ ___ (970) 491-6832 ___ __ _ _ __ ___ http://boralf.agsci.colostate.edu/~jason ___ __ _ _ __ ___ jason@cnr.colostate.edu ___ __ _ _ __ ___ ____ _____ ______ _______ ______ _____ ____ ___ __ _ Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dirk Meyer Subject: Re: (fractint) the death of DOS fractint Date: 07 Oct 1997 02:14:24 +0200 Tim Wegner wrote: > If [...] Fractint were ported to djgpp (the > extended DOS GNU C compiler) then the DOS version could live for as > long as DOS lives. That's because djgpp is a 32 bit flat memory model > environment. Most code that compiles under djgpp will also compile > under Linux or Unix or Win95. We could easily maintain a core of > portable code and everyone would be happy. I think that's right. If Fractint would be ported to DJGPP, memory would be no problem. And it would be no disadvantage for portability, especially to Linux, because DJGPP is mostly the same as GCC on Linux (only a few changes for DOS...) My experience with DJGPP (ver 1) is, that it produces faster code than real mode compilers, and a DJGPP version is almost for sure faster than a windows version. It's not my opinion what Rich Thomson wrote: > I don't see any reason why a windows version of fractint couldn't do > batch operations just as fast. In fact, since the code would be moved > entirely to a 32-bit instruction base, it might even go faster. DJGPP is also 32 bit, and there would be no "resource eating" windows in background (if you kept an old DOS 6.2 version on your PC...). Besides Linux, DOS is my favourite operating system, because it is simple and fast and the user has a maximum of control over the system (which you can't say of win95...) So, please, keep Fractint for DOS alive (in new clothes)! Dirk Meyer. Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: newstedclan@juno.com Date: 06 Oct 1997 20:08:08 -0500 Hey try this in "Formula" type. I did it and zoomed into there far right and also in the upper center area. Really cool, and alot more chaotic in the upper area zoom than in the right area zoomed. Comments? Nuke1 (xaxis) { ; M.L. Newsted Jr. z = 0 c = pixel ; basic mandel upto here d = pixel: ;add new variable z = (z*z + c) / d ; slightly altered computation, highly different results } "...God is in the details..." Linus C. Pauling Nuke Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: e-j-h@juno.com (Evan J Hall) Subject: Re: (fractint) dmj-pub.frm Date: 06 Oct 1997 17:47:05 -0500 >This actually isn't part of your e-mail service, but the software >*you* use >to fetch and read your mail. Using a program like Eudora, Netscape >Mail, >or MS Internet Mail will decode attached MIME files automatically. >(And no >doubt most other software will, too.) I use Juno because it's free e-mail, and free is quite a bit cheaper than anything else I've seen. >If you are having trouble with the file, you can obtain the original >here: > > http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2605/misc/dmj-pub.zip > That's where the problem comes in. Juno is e-mail only. No Internet. I do, however, have friends that can get it for me, and I plan on doing that. >I used a lot of IF...ENDIF constructs in this file, so you will need >FractInt 19.6 to use it. Some (perhaps all) of what I did could be >done >without using the IF...ENDIF, but it would have been slower and a lot >more >cumbersome to read. > Again, no Internet, but I can have a friend get me the file. Thanks! + | :)Evan Hall | e-j-h@juno.com | My other computer is a Commodore 64 +---------------------------------------+ Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Jay Hill" Subject: Re: (fractint) An interesting fractal Date: 06 Oct 1997 09:34:42 -0700 Paul wrote: >You're telling me this guy really used 1 billion maxiter?! Oh course. Paul, it is simple and if you use solid guessing it is not so bad. I listed earlier some tricks to get the part of the image you want to see done first. It involves panning left and right to get Fractint to work on a narrow slice of the image. If you like what you see, then let the rest fill in. With period checking, very few smaples go to 1 billion. Jay Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) Weird Date: 06 Oct 1997 23:19:36 -0600 Paul wrote: > Shouldn't the mailing list intercept bounces instead of forwarding them to > every darned user? Hmmm - and then you quoted the same message that went (again!) to every darned user List administration issues are hereby declared off topic for several reasons: 1. List administration IS off topic. 2. Most folks are probably not interested, and in any case no one except me can do anything about it. 3. I need to hear about list administration issues, and might easily miss messages posted to the list. Just email me directly with questions or suggestions about list administration. I'm quite pleased with the way the list is going, thanks to everyone for participating. Tim Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kathy roth Subject: (fractint) printing Date: 07 Oct 1997 00:22:10 -0700 Hi. I'm really new to this and think fractint is a great program. I have been trying to print and only have been able to print in black and white. I have not found anywhere to set printing options. The printer is printing everything but fractint in color. I am running version 19.6 and using an Epson Stylus 800 printer. Thanks. Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: JulianPA@aol.com Subject: (fractint) Integer Math Date: 07 Oct 1997 03:24:41 -0400 (EDT) Tim Wegner asks: If removing integer math extended the life of the DOS fractint would folks be for it? I say by all means go ahead. And by all means continue with what will be necessary to eventually bring Fractint up to 32 bit also. Julian Adamaitis julianpa@aol.com Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: nick.grasso@hrads.com (Grasso, Nick) Subject: Re: (fractint) printing Date: 07 Oct 1997 10:39:41 -0400 At 12:22 AM 10/7/97 -0700, kathy roth wrote: >Hi. I'm really new to this and think fractint is a great program. I >have been trying to print and only have been able to print in black and >white. I have not found anywhere to set printing options. The printer >is printing everything but fractint in color. I am running version 19.6 >and using an Epson Stylus 800 printer. Thanks. The printing capabilities of fractint are quite rudimentary. I don't think many people print directly from fractint. You are much better off using a third party program. If you are running Windows, get the shareware program PaintShop Pro. It is easy to use and does a great job of printing fractals on my Deskjet 870. Nick nick.grasso@hrads.com Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Justin A. Kolodziej" <4wg7kolodzie@vms.csd.mu.edu> Subject: Re: (fractint) printing Date: 07 Oct 1997 09:47:03 -0500 kathy roth wrote: > Hi. I'm really new to this and think fractint is a great program. I > have been trying to print and only have been able to print in black and > white. I have not found anywhere to set printing options. The printer > is printing everything but fractint in color. I am running version 19.6 > and using an Epson Stylus 800 printer. Thanks. > Congratulations, you've found the one thing about Fractint that isn't great. This is a common complaint among new users of Fractint. The best advice that has come up on this newsgroup is: Don't use Fractint for printing! You're much better off saving the image as a .GIF fie and using an image editor to print. I hear Paint Shop Pro works great; it's shareware and you should be able to find it on the Internet. I hope this helps. Justin Kolodziej "I only use Windows because: 1. Solaris doesn't work on PCs :( 2. I can't afford a Sun and I'd have to buy a server AND a workstation :( :( :( 3. When's the last time YOU saw an X-Windows app in your local computer store?! ;)" Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jason Hine Subject: (fractint) FractFloat? Date: 07 Oct 1997 08:56:28 -0600 (MDT) Howdy... Just my two cents concerning the debate over whether or not to continue support for a DOS version of Fractint... I say produce perhaps one or two more versions, and then cease the DOS version. There are a few bugs/improvements that I'd like to see corrected/implemented (mostly concerning truecolor support and speed improvements... go synchronous orbits!!!), resulting in an even-more-awesome-than-it-already-is fractal generation program which almost anyone can run on almost any machine... I have not done any windows (i.e., VB) programming, but I am beginning to understand the usefulness of having predefined interface libraries and such... just my two cents' worth! Jason (Spidey) Hine Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jason Hine Subject: (fractint) Truecolor Autokey Question Date: 07 Oct 1997 09:15:25 -0600 (MDT) --31c_58ba-785c_5140-42f_470a Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-MD5: 2CZA95ecd6Sf+KhFerXCow== X-Sun-Data-Type: text Howdy all, I messed around with my autokey problem last night for a couple hours, but was unable to determine the source of my problem... so I'm still looking for advice/help! Below is the autokey file produced by my program... if you want to run it, you're going to need to first save an image of the Mandelbrot set, calling it 'deeper' (GIF is implied, remember...). Don't set a viewwindow size (do it at a standard rez, maybe SF5), since there's currently a problem when Fractint tries to write out a viewwindowed Targa file. My problem is that I can't get a complete ITERATES.TGA file out of Fractint when it's running an autokey file. Any comments/suggestions/jibes are greatly appreciated, Jason (Soon to visit Massachusetts) Hine In basic English: Get past credits Turn sound off Restore DEEPER.GIF Create zoombox and move to new pixel location (determined by my program) Save image with zoombox showing as d0000000.gif Turn truecolor option on Increase iterations Change savename to 'deeper' Set file overwrite to yes Render new, zoomed image Save image Quit out of Fractint --31c_58ba-785c_5140-42f_470a Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=deeper.key Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-MD5: Yd+iIfvyuXBU6mlDxjL0Qw== Content-Description: deeper.key Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=deeper.key ENTER "g" "sound=off" ENTER "r" "deeper.gif" ENTER ENTER CALCWAIT PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP PAGEUP RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 RIGHT WAIT 0.3 DOWN WAIT 0.3 "x" DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN "d0000000.gif" ENTER WAIT 0.3 "s" CALCWAIT "g" "truecolor=yes" ENTER CALCWAIT "x" DOWN DOWN WAIT 1 "505" DOWN DOWN DOWN "deeper" DOWN "y" ENTER ENTER CALCWAIT WAIT 8 "s" WAIT 2 ESC ESC "y" --31c_58ba-785c_5140-42f_470a-- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Mike or Linda Allison" Subject: (fractint) Re: Date: 07 Oct 1997 09:13:34 -0700 Hi, Peter! I don't think I ever saw an answer to your question, so I'll give it a go! When you are in Fractint, load one of your favorite fractals. Then hit "b". On the first line, give your par file a name (pfj.par ?). On the second line, give your fractal a name (fract001 ?). Add any comments (copyright Peter Jakubowicz ?) and hit enter. You just generated a par file! Load another favorite, hit "b," leave the par file name the same, and on the second line enter the second fractal's name (fract002 ?). Hit enter. You have two par files (fract001 and fract002) in the file named pfj.par When you exit DOS back to Windows, you can open pfj.par as a text file, see the par file you generated, copy it, upload it, whatever! Very simple! Linda Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Damien M. Jones" Subject: (fractint) dmj-pub.frm Date: 07 Oct 1997 15:33:18 -0400 Howdy folks, Just wanted to let everyone know that an update version of my FRM for new coloring methods has been placed on my web site. This contains slight adjustments to the formulae to address the color drop-out problem Kerry Mitchell pointed out, and a few tweaks to the smooth coloring algorithm (and all formulae that incorporate it). I have also included a PAR file that makes getting started with these formulae easier. Rather than select a new fractal type, and having to remember which other settings need to be used (outside=real, decomp=256, periodicity=no), you can select the corresponding PAR file entry and have everything set for you. There are also a few more examples in the PAR file. You can download the ZIP file containing FRM and PAR from this URL: http://www.geocities.com/~fractalus/misc/dmj-pub.zip If you don't use this URL, the file is a little hard to find--there IS a link, but it's obscure. I intend to fix this, but wanted to let interested folks know the new file is available. Those who do not have web access but would still like the file can e-mail me and I will send it as an attachment. If you have trouble with attachments, I can send it as plain text--but the plain text is 200K, and the ZIP file is only 15K. Damien M. Jones / temporary sanity designs / http://www.emi.net/~dmj/ dmj@emi.net / my gallery: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2605/ Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rich Thomson Subject: Re: (fractint) the death of DOS fractint Date: 07 Oct 1997 10:33:55 -0600 In article <34397EE0.7A511611@studbox.uni-stuttgart.de> , Dirk Meyer writes: > DJGPP is also 32 bit, and there would be no "resource eating" windows > in background (if you kept an old DOS 6.2 version on your PC...). I didn't say windows was less resource hungry than DOS; I said that 32-bit code is likely to be faster than 16-bit code. This is my understanding for modern processors anyway (pentium). -- ``Between stimulus and response is the will to choose.'' -- Steven Covey =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 3D Paint: The Power to Create in 3D; Rich Thomson email me for more info rthomson@ptc.com Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: newstedclan@juno.com Date: 07 Oct 1997 16:33:15 -0500 Want a novice opinion? Pleeese write a 32 bit "windows" version of Fractint. I don't care what you call it! It seems that ediingt formulas and such could be done alot easier and faster using pop-up windows for entering new information. Plus, I wouldn't have to close fractint and edit my formula (simple as they are) and re-open fractint, select display, type etc... I could just leave Fractint open and maximize, edit,minimize, then try my changes. This would be great for us who use trial and error more than mathematical planning. ANNNND. What is the big deal with snowflakecolor with float=yes. I tried it with my pentium 166 and it only took about 2.5 minutes at the sixth iteration. And I didn't see any missing pieces. I didn't go any higher. ANNND since you said it was o.k. to ask simple questions here's one: Do you mean delete integer math in favor of real numbers ( 1,2, 3 versus 1.0, 2.0, 3.0)? I use real numbers all the time when I play around, is fractint just ignoring me? Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ijk@sas.upenn.edu (Ian J Kaplan) Subject: (fractint) Re: your mail Date: 07 Oct 1997 18:02:48 -0400 (EDT) newstedclan@juno.com wrote: > ANNND since you said it was o.k. to ask simple questions here's one: > Do you mean delete integer math in favor of real numbers ( 1,2, 3 versus > 1.0, 2.0, 3.0)? > I use real numbers all the time when I play around, is fractint just > ignoring me? In the bad old days, most computers lacked a math-coprocessor (or floating-point processor) optimized for real numbers instead of integers. If you passed an instruction down to your processor that basically said "compute 3.5*2.0", it would run whole orders of magnitude slower than "compute 4*2". A sorry, sorry state of affairs for fractals. Fractint slipped around this speedbump by converting all floating-point (or 'real') numbers to integers before doing the math. Of course this limited the precision of the operation and hence the maximum zoom before you switched back into floating-point mode; if you dig up an old PC and start zooming in on the M-set, you'll see a sudden slowdown at a certain magnification. It introduced a few artifacts of the technique and added a great deal of nonportable, complicated DOS code. But it ran much, much faster than other fractal engines of the time. With the advent of the 486DX, math-coprocessors became built-in hardware; in a modern pentium, fractint doesn't really gain speed this way, to my knowledge. So if we consider only what's best for relatively new PCs, and if we don't worry about the very very large workload of virtually rebuilding the fractint source code, it's definitely time to do away with integer math. On the other hand, there are a lot of 486SX or less users out there. On the gripping hand, they can still use old versions of fractint if they want. Me, I think it's time to move forward... assuming we find some willing victims to plow through every last bit of code... BTW, for those who've made it this far, can we PLEEZE promise to base this code in GNU C++ and not proprietary Microsquish stuff? and consider writing win95 interfaces with Borland or someone, just to preserve the free and open tradition fractint represents against the evil onslaught of microsoft Everything? Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rich Thomson Date: 07 Oct 1997 16:06:22 -0600 In article <19971007.163316.10118.0.newstedclan@juno.com> , newstedclan@juno.com writes: > ANNNND. What is the big deal with snowflakecolor with float=yes. I tried > it with my pentium 166 and it only took about 2.5 minutes at the sixth > iteration. And I didn't see any missing pieces. I didn't go any higher. With L-systems, the computation time tends to go up exponentially, rather than linearly. That is why at order 7 you should expect it to go significantly longer than 2.5 minutes. (I think people reported it going at about 12 minutes on a P166). > ANNND since you said it was o.k. to ask simple questions here's one: > Do you mean delete integer math in favor of real numbers ( 1,2, 3 versus > 1.0, 2.0, 3.0)? > I use real numbers all the time when I play around, is fractint just > ignoring me? Ultimately everything in the computer is either a 1 or a 0. "Integer math" refers to using instructions that manipulate integer quantities. If you take the number 1.5 and multiply it by a scale factor, like 10000, then you have 15000, an integer. Using integer arithmatic with a scale factor in this fashion is called "fixed point", because of the scale factor, you have a fixed number of digits to the right of the decimal point when you do computations in integer arithmatic. Fractint uses integer math and fixed-point arithmatic when it can to avoid the more costly floating point instructions. Until the 486 generation of machines, floating point instructions were emulated in software unless a hardware coprocessing chip was installed in the machine. Thus, if an integer add operation had a normalized cost of 1, a floating-point add operation would have a normalized cost of 10 without the coprocessor. (The numbers here are for the purposes of explanation and have no bearing on the actual cost of such operations on a specific processor.) "Floating point" operations carry around two quantities for each number -- the mantissa and the exponent. The mantissa maintains the significant digits of the quantity and the exponent is used as a scale factor to increase the dynamic range of the representable quantities. Think of a number in "scientific notation", like 6.023 x 10^23; the mantissa is "6.023" and the exponent is "23". Most modern microprocessors have hardware accelerated floating point operations, and so the advantage of using fixed-point arithmatic and integer instructions isn't as great as it used to be. However, once you get to arbitrary precision calculations, they tend to be implemented as a chain of integer math instructions operating on the separate digits of the arbitrary precision quantity. Most CPUs have integer performance (in terms of calculations/second) that exceeds their floating point performance. So fractint isn't ignoring your fractional numbers when you input them, but if the numbers are within the range where fractint can use its integer math code to perform the computation (and float=no), then it will use a fixed-point algorithm. -- ``Between stimulus and response is the will to choose.'' -- Steven Covey =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 3D Paint: The Power to Create in 3D; Rich Thomson email me for more info rthomson@ptc.com Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Justin A. Kolodziej" <4wg7kolodzie@vms.csd.mu.edu> Subject: (fractint) Re: Date: 07 Oct 1997 17:12:37 -0500 newstedclan@juno.com wrote: > ANNNND. What is the big deal with snowflakecolor with float=yes. I tried > it with my pentium 166 and it only took about 2.5 minutes at the sixth > iteration. And I didn't see any missing pieces. I didn't go any higher. The big deal WAS with float = no. As we've found out, snowflakecolor works perfectly with float = yes, even at levels 7 and 8. (Level 8 took 9 hours 14 min 40.02 seconds on my Pentium Pro 180 at 1024x768x256!) Just use float=yes and you'll be fine. > ANNND since you said it was o.k. to ask simple questions here's one: > Do you mean delete integer math in favor of real numbers ( 1,2, 3 versus > 1.0, 2.0, 3.0)? > I use real numbers all the time when I play around, is fractint just > ignoring me? Not really. Fractint uses real numbers all the way through. It's just when Fractint goes to calculate the image, it does some programming hocus-pocus to represent real numbers (1.24...) as integer types in the program (74593 or whatever it comes out to). This was great when math coprocessors were expensive and not widely used, as integer math ran MUCH faster on the 386 than floating-point math did (calculating numbers while keeping track of a decimal point). However, times change, and the Pentium series does floating-point math as fast as (if not faster than) integer math with its built-in math coprocessor. So integer math doesn't help very much now, and that's why the programmers are thinking about dumping it. I hope this cleared things up, and if it doesn't, or I've made