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1997-12-28
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From: robin bussell <robin.bussell@lucent.com>
Subject: (fractdev) wishlist '97 retrospective
Date: 29 Dec 1997 18:36:56 +0000
May I firstly extend my warmest holiday greetings and the hope of a
marvellous
new year to fellow Fractdev members, Hi!
The Fractint wishlist has been up for some four months now and has been
quite a success with over 1100 hits and loads of suggestions (ok so I
gave up counting them :-) around 200 anyway!) I present here a
condensation
of some of them as a holiday present and insight into the minds of the
fractint using public....
Oh yeah, for those who wish to know the full list is to be found at:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/members/robin.b2/olig/fracwish.htm
Firstly some fullsome praise to warm the cockles of your hearts:
"You have created a great program, and your names are engraved
in the software history " peter2@sofha.de
"I love Fractint, its an awsome program. " BoyOfDstny@aol.com
"I would also like to thank you guyz at the Stone Soup Group for
proving
wrong the saying, "You get what you pay for" " ewk@edsr.com
"THE ONLY reason I have a computer is FRACTINT.(believe it)"
hukmut@gccweb.net
"P.S. I love you guys" kevin.weedon@diamond.co.uk
"Go on with it, thanks for the pleasure you give me, Cornelius"
cvmeurs@pi.net
"Thanks to all fractint programmers for this fantastic program!"
fries@conti.de
"Thanks for the best fractal generator ever!"
Rafael
"By the way, you guys (and gals) that make and add to the program are
truly an awesome bunch of folks. You have my admiration. (NOTE: see
the
contribution policy in the Fractint Help section.) Fract On!"
gunnar@foxinternet.net
"Best wishes from Fractal Fanatic Female in Sweden, Liselotte Frejdig.
Keep up the good work!!!"
frejdig@algonet.se
"Fractint is THE ONLY WORTHWHILE PROGRAM IN THE UNIVERSE! Thank you
much!"
omomom@iquest.net
Whew! praise indeed! gosh we're just this bunch of guys you know :-)
Nice
to be appreciated.
Then again sometimes wishes get a little blunt.. especially from the Mac
using contingent ... I thought those guys were supposed to be the
creative
ones! <GDAR>
"Two words... Power Mac." bltaylor@junction.net
"Bob in here at 1:16:0 Monday October 27 97
Make one for MAC"
Then again it looks like there are some pretty desperate fractal starved
mac
users around as these pleas and bribes show:
"Please, please make it downloadable for the Mac. Is that impossible?"
pkcnz@imagina.com
"on bended knees, deep sigh: Fractint for Mac Os8???? Is that
possible?
please say "yes!" " mgewuerz@mines.edu
"PLEASE ! help me i NEED a copy of Fractint for my Power Macintosh"
hienz@hartingdale.com.au
"I would kiss the gnarled toes of anyone who would do a port
of Fractint over to the Macintosh platform."
nok@interport.net
"we users will do all we can to make you presidents of the Earth or
whatever you prefer..."
karo@arkzin.com
hmmm... tempting! it would definately be a Good Thing to make fractint
platform independant but I'm certainly not the guy for it... though
according to some it's just a magic wand wave away :-)
"For all we know, it is written in C, and it shouldn't be such an
impossible mission." karo@arkzin.com
hmmm!
"C'mon! MAC is easier to code for, PowerPC chips have a lower error
rate
with floating point and arbitrary precision math, and it's the
premiere graphics platform. Make the leap! Think different!"
hsoj@geocities.com
what's that about a lower error rate for arbitrary precision math..??!!
But enough Mac bashing methinks (there's no sport in it :^) ) windows
users
have the same needs it seems:
"A very little request -- why not make it a true windows 95/NT
program,
menue based and all... Win 95"
peter2@sofha.de
"A version for Windows95, with true-colour (24 bit) support. Please!"
o.marshall@student.unimelb.edu.au
"A 32-bit Win95/Win98 and/or WinNT version with MMX support. (I still
prefer good old DOS, but it seems that Bill Gates has had his way!)"
KA5FUN@AOL.COM
And so on for many a request... looks like the world is going gooey! As
an
aside it was interesting to see a few requests for MMX support
revealing the extent of the penetration of the intel "MMX is good"
marketing
campaign.. has *anyone* actually seen an application that is noticeably
accellerated by MMX? I've seen a few that just plain won't work without
it
(probably just due to a detection routine and not any real need for the
somewhat limited extra instructions my cynical side suspects :-) )
but no honest to goodness "works with it or without it and does better
with
it" applications... perhaps we can tout the next version of fractint as
having
"MMX support" .... well it'll use the extra L1 cache won't it :)
anyway I'll put my soapbox away now ;-)
So to sum it up, we've had responses from all over the world from
Australia
to Croatia, from Philadelphia to Oxford, even from someone claiming to
be "ontop a missle over the Atlantic" (Dr StrangeFractal? ) many
suggestions
some interesting, some slightly silly, some academically concise, but
all
friendly and I didn't have to expurgate any obscenities either!.... not
a bad
record I think you'll agree.
For the new year I've been thinking of adding in some commenting ability
whereby the fractint developement team can add their own replies to
points
as they're brought up. It'll probably take the form of a scrollable
frame on
the page which is an extending list like the wishlist itself but with an
entry form on a secret page that only we'll know about. Sort of a "work
in
progress" report, combined with a "why we can't do this so please stop
asking"
option :-)
I'll post here when I've got a prototype going then we can go live if it
looks good.
Meanwhile it'd be appreciated by everyone if you could all look in on
the
wishlist regularly and maybe email some answers to people with problems
from
time to time just to show that we *do* care and aren't really just a
bunch of
AI routines churning through genetic algorithms in a bunch of "big iron"
somewhere out there in the cybersphere ;-)
BTW I'd also appreciate any reports of difficulty in loading the page as
I've
had problems getting it all to load via the firewall at work sometimes
and
wonder if it's happening to anyone else out there (it loads fine at home
but
then again I'm loading it direct from the server as it were )
Soooo....
Here's wishing every one a great new year ahead, may all your
warnings be
trivial, all your pointers resolve painlessly and of course....
many happy routines!
Cheers,
Robin.
P.S. I'll leave you with these thoughts from the upcoming new generation
of
fractanauts......
Benjamin in Japan at 10:47:55 Monday November 10 97
I think fractals are really cool and I like to look at them on the Net.
I think I am da bomb at looking for fractals on the Net. I am 9 years
old.
JACOB in JAPAN at 5:39:3 Tuesday November 11 97
Hi MOM and DAD I love you. : ) My brother is very nice to me.
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