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fractint Digest        Friday, October 17 1997        Volume 01 : Number 035



In this issue:

    Re: (fractint) Copyright law
    (fractint) Re: color maps
    Re: (fractint) Copyright law
    Re: (fractint) Copyright law
    Re: (fractint) Fractal Geometry of Nature -- $ 7.95 !
    Re: (fractint) Fractal Geometry of Nature -- $ 7.95 !
    Re: (fractint) Copyright law
    (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Windows?), revisited
    Re: (fractint) Copyright law
    RE: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Windows?), revisited
    Re: (fractint) Copyright law
    Re: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Windows?), revisited
    Re: (fractint) RE: Fractint and Java, Julian Filmer
    Re: (fractint) Re: Synchronous orbits
    Re: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Windows?), revisited
    (fractint) More results for DOS vs. Windows (vs. XFractint?)
    Re: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Windows?), revisited
    (fractint) Integer math is history, and another modest proposal
    Re: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Windows?), revisited
    Re: (fractint) Integer math is history, and another modest proposal
    Re: (fractint) old user, new problem
    (fractint) Integer math
    Re: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Wi
    Re: (fractint) Why not Java?
    Re: (fractint) 80-bit long double floating point
    Re: (fractint) 80-bit long double floating point

See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the fractint
or fractint-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 14:47:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail] (Ian J Kaplan)
Subject: Re: (fractint) Copyright law

[e-mail] wrote:
>
> It applies. Several of us fractal artists have been involved in a suit with
> someone using images without permission. The case was settled out of court,
> but the take home lesson is that intellectual properties laws, including
> copyright, do apply. That's why many of us include copyright notices in our
> par files.
> Ron Barnett
>
   Oh, I never intended to suggest that copyright didn't apply. I'm just
looking for clarification of exactly what is copyrightable and what isn't...


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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 15:26:25 -0400
From: Thierry Boudet <[e-mail]>
Subject: (fractint) Re: color maps

Contents:

 1 Internet Message Header
 2 <no topic> * Binary *

=============================
From: Gedeon Peteri <[e-mail]>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I)
Content-type: text/html; charset=us-ascii

        please use a more standard mode for your e-mails.

        Thanks.         Thierry.


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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 15:41:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: (fractint) Copyright law

In a message dated 97-10-16 12:56:38 EDT, you write:

<< I be violating people's copyright?  Presumably they published the
 FRM/PAR files in fracxtra to share in the first place.  Many of the
 images in that collection take many hours to compute even on my P90 >>

If the PAR has an imbedded copyright notice, then the image in GIF89a fromat
will have the imbedded notice. From a practical point of view, the way most
of us from the old graphdev compuserve forum have approached the matter is to
allow free use UNLESS SOMEONE INTENDS TO MAKE MONEY OFF THE IMAGES!!
Ron Barnett

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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 13:49:29 -0600
From: Rich Thomson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (fractint) Copyright law

In article <[e-mail]> ,
    [e-mail]  writes:
> If the PAR has an imbedded copyright notice, then the image in GIF89a fromat
> will have the imbedded notice. From a practical point of view, the way most
> of us from the old graphdev compuserve forum have approached the matter is to
> allow free use UNLESS SOMEONE INTENDS TO MAKE MONEY OFF THE IMAGES!!

Cool... I wasn't planning on charging for access to the web site! <g>
- --
  ``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                [e-mail]

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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 17:06:58 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: (fractint) Fractal Geometry of Nature -- $ 7.95 !

Is the the book by Mandelbrot?
I would Love to have a copy.
Is there a way to ge tit instead of off the net?
Alas. I'm not hooked up to the internet.
But maybe soon.

"...God is in the details..." Linus C. Pauling

Nuke

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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 16:19:32 -0600
From: Rich Thomson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (fractint) Fractal Geometry of Nature -- $ 7.95 !

In article <[e-mail]> ,
    [e-mail]  writes:
> Is the the book by Mandelbrot?

Yes.

> Is there a way to ge tit instead of off the net?

They only take orders by US mail.  Here's what you need:


Send check/money-order to:

    EDWARD R. HAMILTON, Bookseller
    Falls Village, CT 06031-5000


    Qty     Item Number    Title                Price
    1      845396    Fractal Geometry of Nature    $ 7.95 ea.

    Shipping & Handling                $3.00

They only ship to addresses inside the USA.
- --
  ``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                [e-mail]

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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 22:38:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: (fractint) Copyright law

In a message dated 97-10-16 14:55:37 EDT, you write:

<< Oh, I never intended to suggest that copyright didn't apply. I'm just
 looking for clarification of exactly what is copyrightable and what isn't...
>>

Ian,
My option (not necessarily the correct legal), which came out of much
discussion on the afore-mentioned matter, is that formulae are probably not
copyrightable while PAR file probably are copyrightable. If the color scheme
of the image is changed enought to look uniquely different, it probably is
not a clear violation of a copyright. <g>.
Ron Barnett

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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 00:32:16 -0500
From: "Justin A. Kolodziej" <[e-mail]>
Subject: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Windows?), revisited

I hate to bring this subject up again, but I noticed that in the whole
discussion on killing off the DOS version of Fractint, no real numbers
indicating speed were mentioned.  Well, I had some time on my hands, so
I decided to run a test of my own.  This is based on the "testquat1"
.par that I recently posted:
testquat1          { ; a radom quatjulia, just made up numbers
  reset=1960 type=julibrot julibrotfromto=-2/2/0/0 julibroteyes=2.5
  orbitname=quatjul center-mag=0/0/0.6666667
  params=-0.14/-0.32/0.1/0.5/0/0 colors=@altern.map
  }

I then ran it in both Winfract and Fractint, with both float and integer
modes  Both tests used 800X600 resolution, and the Windows version was
the active application all the time.  The DOS version was run by
double-clicking on a .PIF file (or shortcut) that had all the defaults
unchanged (in other words, the shortcut that appears after you run an
MS-DOS program for the first timewas not modified) except for debug=500
as a command-line parameter, allow screen saver disabled, and idle
sensitivity set to max. SSTOOLS.INI only contains textsafe=save.  My
system is a Pentium Pro 180 MHz (too slow and old ;) ) with 32 MB RAM, a
Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 Pro video card, running Windows 95 (not OSR2).
Here are the results:
Fractint Integer:  26 min 40.47 sec
Fractint Float:  26 min 43.87sec
WinFrac Integer: 12 min 17.59 sec
WinFrac Float:  12 min 79.98 sec

This really surprised me because most of the Windows ports of things I
use run a lot slower than the DOS versions.  If anyone would like to try
these tests on his/her computer, or make up his/her own, I only ask that
you be as specific as possible about your system information (XFractint
users are especially encouraged to join the debate!  :)  )  If anyone
can explain why WinFract is so much faster,  that would be cool, but
don't expect to get anything  out of it other that admiration! <vbg>

Justin K.

Bad(?) Linux slogans:
- -- Linux: The OS for truly independent spirits! --
- -- Linux: Marquette's Web server (www.mu.edu) uses it, shouldn't you? --

- -- Linux: Because it's free --
- -- Linux: Because you can --
- -- Install Linux: Tell Microsoft where to stick it! --
Justin Kolodziej is [e-mail]



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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 01:12:21 -0500
From: "Paul N. Lee" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (fractint) Copyright law

Ian J Kaplan wrote:
>
> Since the topic's been brought up, I'd like to ask:  what does
> everybody think of copyright law as applied to fractals?
>

U.S. Copyright Law
==================

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United
States (title 17, U.S. Code http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/) to
the authors of "original works of authorship" including literary,
dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works.  This
protection is available to both published and unpublished works.
Section 106 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/106.html) of the
Copyright Act (http://www.law.cornell.edu/usc/17/overview.html)
generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to
authorize others to do the following:

   -- To reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

   -- To prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

   -- To distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work
      to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by
      rental, lease, or lending;

   -- To perform the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of
      literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works,
      pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works;

   -- To display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of
      literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works,
      pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works,
      including the individual images of a motion picture or
      other audiovisual work.

It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the
Act to the owner of copyright. These rights, however, are not unlimited
in scope.  Sections 107 through 119
(http://www.law.cornell.edu/usc/17/107.html) of the Copyright Act
establish limitations on these rights.  In some cases, these limitations
are specified exemptions from copyright liability.  One major limitation
is the doctrine of "fair use," which is given a statutory basis in
section 107 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html) of the Act.
In other instances, the limitation takes the form of a "compulsory
license" under which certain limited uses of copyrighted works are
permitted upon payment of specified royalties and compliance with
statutory conditions.  For further information about the limitations of
any of these rights, consult the Copyright Act
(http://www.law.cornell.edu/usc/17/overview.html) or write to the U.S.
Copyright Office (http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/)....


Links to Related Web Sites
==========================

Active Copyright Law
- --------------------

     The U.S. Copyright Office
          http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/

     Electronic registration at the Copyright Office
          gopher://marvel.loc.gov/11/copyright

     The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
          http://www.uspto.gov/

     The Library of Congress
          http://www.loc.gov/

     The Copyright Society of the U.S.A
          http://www.csusa.org/research/index.html

     Trademark Law Materials from Cornell Law School
          http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/trademark.html

New Laws, Bills, and Changes
- ----------------------------

     US Supreme Court Intellectual Property Decisions
          http://www.law.cornell.edu/syllabi?copyright+patent+trademark

Intellectual Property Web Sites
- -------------------------------

     Copyright Clearance Center
          http://www.openmarket.com/copyright/

     The ILTguide to Copyright
          http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/projects/copyright/index.html

     INTERNET LAW SIMPLIFIED
          http://home.earthlink.net/~ivanlove


For advice and current information about US copyright law, please
contact a qualified legal professional.

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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 09:38:28 PDT
From: Nigel Long <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Windows?), revisited

On 16 oct Justin  wrote:
<snip>I hate to bring this subject up again, but I noticed that in the whole
discussion on killing off the DOS version of Fractint, no real numbers
indicating speed were mentioned.  Well, I had some time on my hands, so
I decided to run a test of my own.  <snip>

I have exactly the same graphics card. The rest of the system is an AMD-K5-PR90
chip, 16Mb RAM, Win95 release 1. If I run a 640x480x256 base mandelbrot it takes
1.9 seconds (Fractint 19.6, DOS fullscreen). Winfract 18.21 takes 4.1 seconds to do
the same spec.

I suspect that your DOS session is far from optimal - tweaking is a part of windows
life I detest but have never been able to ignore. The first question I would ask is
'Are you running full-screen or windowed? I am unfortunate in that my system
refuses to run DOS graphic modes in a window, so I can't comment on the
differential, but experience with other apps at work tells me that there is a massive
speed 'hit' to be endured running windowed. In fact I have measured fractint for dos
running at exactly the same speed fullscreen in Win95, and in plain PC-DOS 6.3.
This I find surprising in itself, as Windows could be expected to add -some-
penalty! I even set up a dual-boot system because I expected a speed reduction,
and have not had to use it that much.

I will try your particular .PAR file tonight and see what happens.

Nigel.



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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 11:15:55 PDT
From: Nigel Long <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (fractint) Copyright law

Permit me to throw in my 2 penny worth;

I work in a major UK University library. One of the concerns that has dropped onto
my desk of late is the question of the practicalities of copyright in electronic
formats. basically this boils down to the problem of discerning who really does
hold a copyright, given the ease of editing of electronic media, and the question of
priorities.

If I take a file, which has an embedded copyright message, and 'file it off' by
editing, then repost it, how does any subsequent party know about the original
copyright? The practical upshot for us is that we will not accept electronic media
for inclusion in the collection; precisely because we cannot tell if it has been
edited.

Watermarking of images is possible, but I don't see how you can do this
successfully for text, such as fractint PARs and FRMs. I respect copyright, but I am
also quite sure I have unwittingly infringed because someone else has removed a
message further down the line. Many times I have seen graphic files, which
claim to have been by X, and have seen them elsewhere as being the property of
Y.

It is very hard to establish who genuinely wrote a file first, and so establish the
real copyright holder. I can change the date of creation of a file, and so make it
appear that I wrote a file -before- someone claiming they are the creator. This is an
issue the university legal-eagles  are currently debating (at great expense). UK
courts have emulated the action of the ostrich over electronic media, and so case
law has lagged badly. What we need is someone to really get their 'code caught in
the grinder' so we have some established case law to guide us - any volunteers?

Nigel Long,
Hartley Library,
University of Southampton (Reserve Collection)
[e-mail]



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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 00:20:33 -1000
From: "Shauna Jones" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Windows?), revisited

On 17 Oct 97 at 0:32, Justin A. Kolodziej spoke about (fractint) DOS
vs. Windows (vs. X-W:

> system is a Pentium Pro 180 MHz (too slow and old ;) ) with 32 MB
> RAM, a Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 Pro video card, running Windows 95
> (not OSR2). Here are the results: Fractint Integer:  26 min 40.47
> sec Fractint Float:  26 min 43.87sec WinFrac Integer: 12 min 17.59
> sec WinFrac Float:  12 min 79.98 sec

I suspect that you're encountering one of the weaknesses of the PPro
... it's optimized for 32-bit work., not 16-bit. Also, what are your
figures for straight DOS (not running under W95)?

Another blast of bits from David
Visit our no-so-boring web page: http://www.aloha.net/~shauna
Visit the Hawaii Astronomical Society: http://www.hawastsoc.org
For the best Hawaii & Pacific Basin surf forecast: mailto:[e-mail]

Random Thought for this Nanosecond
Cure for postal strikes: mail them their strike pay.



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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 12:29:56 +2
From: "J.P. Louvet" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (fractint) RE: Fractint and Java, Julian Filmer

le 15 Oct 97 a 21:08, Peter Jakubowicz ecrivait (Peter Jakubowicz wrote) :

> > There is a very nice Fractint utillity called Filmer written in Java by
> > David Mansfield at :
> >
> >  http://ariel.cobite.com/~julian/filmer/
> >
> >  You will even find the source of the program at thos site!
> >
> >
> > Hi Thore
> >
> I've been trying this URL for three days with no luck, mainly to see Java
> source code for a Fractint utility. Can you or anyone else tell me what
> this thing does (it's a stand-alone application, right, not an applet?)
> and where else I might be able to find it.

A search with Hotbot gives me

http://www.julianhaight.com/filmer/

You will see that there are DOS, Windows and Java versions

Jean-Pierre louvet : [e-mail]
Fractal album :
http://graffiti.cribx1.u-bordeaux.fr/MAPBX/louvet/jpl0.html

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------------------------------

Date: 17 Oct 1997 15:38:09 +0200
From: Falk Hueffner <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (fractint) Re: Synchronous orbits

In article <[e-mail]> ,
    Evin C Robertson <[e-mail]>  writes:

> I just have to ask: What's all this talk about synchronous orbits
> with fractals?  Did an altavista search and came up with nothing
> related to the topic.

It is called "Simultaneous Orbit Iteration" usually. See
http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~rms/AlmondBread/ for a longer description
and an actual implementation (with sources!). With SOI you can
calculate every image in floating point precision in a few
minutes. That's why I reaaly would like to see an implementation that
supports arbitrary precision. I even consider writing one or adding it
to AlmondBread.


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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 12:03:08 -0500
From: "Justin A. Kolodziej" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Windows?), revisited

Shauna Jones wrote:

> <snip>
> I suspect that you're encountering one of the weaknesses of the PPro
> ... it's optimized for 32-bit work., not 16-bit.

True... but WinFrac is designed for Windows 3.1, which is still mostly 16-bit
(I think).  That doesn't explain why Winfrac is more than 2 times faster than
Fractint running in Windows for Julibrots.

> Also, what are your
> figures for straight DOS (not running under W95)?
>

OK, here's the shocker...(?)  After rebooting, pressing F8, and choosing "safe
mode command prompt only" (clean boot) the results are:Integer mode:  8 min
17.68 sec
Float mode: 8 min 5.43 sec
Obviously something is taking up way too many processor cycles in Win95 that
should be going to Fractint.  Then again, I haven't tried loading all my
device drivers and just not going to Windows before running Fractint.  I'll
try that next and let you all know the results.

Justin K.

Bad(?) Linux slogans:
- -- Linux: The OS for truly independent spirits! --
- -- Linux: The OS of champions! --
- -- Linux: Marquette's Web server (www.mu.edu) uses it, shouldn't you? --
- -- Linux: Because it's free --
- -- Linux: Because you can --
- -- Install Linux: Tell Microsoft where to stick it! --
Justin Kolodziej is [e-mail]






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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 13:29:05 -0500
From: "Justin A. Kolodziej" <[e-mail]>
Subject: (fractint) More results for DOS vs. Windows (vs. XFractint?)

Boy, am I glad I'm on mid-term break here at Marquette so I can run all
these tests!  I just tried my julibrot (actually a quaternion Julia) in
DOS, but after loading all my device drivers:
CD-ROM driver
S3VBE20 (adds VESA 2.0 compatibility to S3-based cards, available from
S3's Web site http://www.s3.com)
Fastvid (speeds up VESA 2.0 modes for Pentium Pros and Pentium IIs,
available from http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/FastVid)
Xmode (Diamond's DOS refresh rate utility)
Virus scanner
Sound driver
The results this time were:
Integer mode:  11 min 16.03 sec
Float mode: 11 min 17.89 sec
I find it strange that float mode is only faster when the system is
clean-booted, though the differences are too small to notice.  Anyway,
the results here aren't too bad, being a minute faster than WinFract.
Still, I think a 32-bit version in either Windows or Dos would blow the
version we have now  away.  Anyone care to challenge that?
I wish I could run XFractint, but I really don't want to bother changing
my entire OS just to run one program!

BTW, has anyone checked out the "Julibrot bug" yet?  I think there is
something seriously wrong here that deserves further investigation. I
REALLY want to see quat in 3-d!

Justin K.

Bad(?) Linux slogans:
- -- Linux: The OS for truly independent spirits! --
- -- Linux: The OS of champions! --
- -- Linux: Marquette's Web server (www.mu.edu) uses it, shouldn't you? --

- -- Linux: Because it's free --
- -- Linux: Because you can --
- -- Install Linux: Tell Microsoft where to stick it! --
Justin Kolodziej is [e-mail]




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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 11:43:47 -0700
From: "Jay Hill"<[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Windows?), revisited

Justin K. wrote:
>Obviously something is taking up way too many processor cycles in
>Win95 that should be going to Fractint.

A year ago the Mersenne Prime search email list mentioned a
Microsoft internal product called Wintop.exe part of the Krnltoys.exe
       http://www.microsoft.com/windows/software/krnltoy.htm
       http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/info/kerneltoys.htm
self extracting package from the windows developers. Search for it at
Microsoft.com. It is an as is 'toy' that shows which processes are using
the processor and how much.  We used it to tune up and get the max
out of the Prime95 search program. I  found that I had to set the
properties of DOS windows so that the Prime95 program would get
all possible background cycles and my DOS window would not be
shorted.  I can get 99+% from a DOS window (full screen or windowed)
with Prime95 stopped and 89% with Prime95 running. When the DOS
prompt is idle I can get 99+% on Prime95.  This is ideal.  With the
wrong settings, I got 70% in the DOS window even when looking at
the C:\> prompt.

For some reason I have found WinTop does not always work with the
latest  Windows release.

Go to your DOS window click upper left MSDOS icon and pull down
to 'properties'. This dialog shows 'Program/Font/Memory/Screen/Misc'
Click Misc.  Make the Idle sensitivity High, check Background suspend.
Now if you have more than one MSDOS window open, only the one with
focus gets the cycles.  You can adjust these to match what you are doing,
adjusting each window.  The pifs for the launching icons can be set up
also.
I have a shortcut to Fractint whose icon properties are set to  'Always
suspend' (not checked) and 'Idle sensitivity' set high.  This way I can
launch the fractal of the day, set to 320x200, push Alt-Enter to make it a
window and watch it finish while I do other things.  I just measured 98%
for
Fractint in a 320x200 window with 14 tasks running including this emailer.
The MSDOS window is now idle and eating 96%.    So now I just set to
'Always suspend' and it is eating 0%.  You can almost completely control
it.  Now I just put its idle sensitivity to low and it uses about 89%
computing
another image while I write this.

With all this you should be able to get very close to 100% in your tests.

Another $.03 worth.

Jay



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Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 21:17:23 -0600
From: "Tim Wegner" <[e-mail]>
Subject: (fractint) Integer math is history, and another modest proposal

Ok, after consulting with "the customers" here and on CompuServe, the
decision is in. Version 20 will NOT support integer math, so hang on
to your version 19.6. Even Bert Tyler, the original guru of
fractint's integer math, voted to remove it, as well as all pre-386
support. Similar sentiments were expressed here.

This will slim Fractint way down, and freeing up space for  adding
new features. It will have the paradoxical effect at once both
prolonging the life of the DOS version and faciltating ports to new
platforms sich as Win95.

Now another modest proposal. While we are cutting and slashing code,
what would you think about cutting out all built-in fractal types
that can be implemented with a formula in the formula parser? We
could include a special formula file with all the removed built-in
types.

Thoughts?

Tim




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Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 21:17:23 -0600
From: "Tim Wegner" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Windows?), revisited

Justin wrote:

> I hate to bring this subject up again, but I noticed that in the whole
> discussion on killing off the DOS version of Fractint, no real numbers
> indicating speed were mentioned.

Actually, the thread was not on killing the DOS version, but rather
on killing integer math. This would extend the life of the DOS
version as well as make it easier to port to other environments. We
just had a discussion on compuserve about this, and the decision was
unanimous: take out integer math. So file away your version 19.6 for
the future - version 20.0 will not support integer math.

> This really surprised me because most of the Windows ports of things I
> use run a lot slower than the DOS versions.

Winfract uses the exact same code as the DOS fractint of the same
version. It is not a 32 bit app, but uses the same medium memory
model that the DOS version uses.

A Win95 port would be different. It would use a 32 bit memory
model that can access more than 640 K using 32 bit pointers.

There are reasons why the DOS version could run slower than
Winfract under some circumstances. Fractint exceeded the 640K DOS
limit a long time agao. In order to survive, we made use of overlays,
in which some parts of the code are no loaded into memory until they
are used. In some cases performance suffered because code gets
swapped in and out of memory. I don't know if that is the expalnation
in this case.

You should get  version of the DOS fractint that matches your
Winfracft version (18.something). I'll bet then the DOS bversion
would be faster.

When we cut out integer math, we will able to optimize the overlays
better and some featrures will probably speed up.

Tim


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Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 22:46:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: (fractint) Integer math is history, and another modest proposal

In a message dated 97-10-17 22:27:38 EDT, you write:

<< Now another modest proposal. While we are cutting and slashing code,
 what would you think about cutting out all built-in fractal types
 that can be implemented with a formula in the formula parser? We
 could include a special formula file with all the removed built-in
 types.

 Thoughts?

 Tim
  >>

Just make it simple enough for us newbies to access them.  KivrynH

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Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 23:26:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail] (Paul Derbyshire)
Subject: Re: (fractint) old user, new problem

V8?? where??? send it to the guys collecting old versions! There's a link
at spanky.triumf.ca now under "FRACTING pages at spanky" for the new
"Fractint museum curators" :-)

- --
    .*.  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 [e-mail], http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh

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Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 23:35:12 -0400
From: Lee Skinner <[e-mail]>
Subject: (fractint) Integer math

Tim,

>>Now another modest proposal. While we are cutting and slashing code, wh=
at
would you think about cutting out all built-in fractal types that can be
implemented with a formula in the formula parser? We could include a
special formula file with all the removed built-in types. <<

Modest??<g> I have many thousands of images implemented with the built-in=

types. Sometimes I like to revisit some of them and zoom in on them. Coul=
d
some mechanism be devised to somehow declare equivalence of the deleted
built-in types with their formulas so that the images would not have to b=
e
regenerated?

Lee

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Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 23:38:20, -0500
From: [e-mail] (MR CHARLES F CROCKER)
Subject: Re: (fractint) DOS vs. Windows (vs. X-Wi

Justin wrote
"OK, here's the shocker...(?)  After rebooting, pressing F8, and choosing
"safe mode command prompt only" (clean boot) the results are:Integer mode:
8 min 17.68 sec Float mode: 8 min 5.43 sec"

Here are my results for a Pentium 90 (happens to be one of the defective
ones). Running DOS 6.20. It doesn't know that Win 95 is on another drive.
Integer 20:11.66
FP      20:12.76
Integer seem to have a microscopic advantage.

Does a clean boot with Win95 actually turn the system over to what it
considers DOS? It seems to be running about 20% faster than you would
predict from clock speed, and FP has the advantage which it doesn't in all
other posted results.

Charles

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Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 00:48:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail] (Paul Derbyshire)
Subject: Re: (fractint) Why not Java?

No offense but this JAVA/C++ debate is really spamming up the mailing
list. I have what appears to be roughly 150K of "Why not Java?" in my
mbox, making the mail system slow as hell and causing disk shortage. Gak.


- --
    .*.  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 [e-mail], http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh

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Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 00:49:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail] (Paul Derbyshire)
Subject: Re: (fractint) 80-bit long double floating point

Gnu C++ also allows "long double"


- --
    .*.  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 [e-mail], http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh

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Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 01:08:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail] (Paul Derbyshire)
Subject: Re: (fractint) 80-bit long double floating point

Nothing silly that Microsoft does surprises me anymore.

- --
    .*.  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 [e-mail], http://chat.carleton.ca/~pderbysh

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