Change History

Version 1.3.1 - April 1996 (current)
This is a bug-fix release.
Master:
- Added a check to prevent the entering of depth > 255, which caused crashes
- Added a note alert to prevent some confusion when there are no Slaves connected

Version 1.3 - March 1996
- The Master-Slave interface was refined in preparation for MacTCP support
- Finally, both applications are now Fat Binaries, running native on PowerPC equipped Macs
Master:
- Added icons to the Slave list
- Zooming: the real and imag values calculated are now rounded to 10 significant digits instead to 6, so you can zoom deeper without having to worry about coordinates.
Slave:
- The Slave now accepts multiple connections, i.e. it can serve several Masters at the same time
- The nice interface was sacrificed to a list displaying the connected Masters
- It’s no longer possible to establish a connection from the Slave, but they can still be closed with the ‘Close Connection’ menu item. Remember to select the connection to close in the list first.

Version 1.2 - September 1995
- The Master-Slave interface was completely rewritten
Master:
- Implemented zooming
- Fixed a bug that caused negative values to be displayed in the info box for big pictures (significantly larger than 640 x 480 pixels)
- Added a menu to control connections
- Added ‘Open…’ and ‘Close’ buttons to the ‘Slaves’ window
- The Master now calculates a very rough preview of the fractal
- A new file format with compression (PackBits)
Slave:
- Improved appearance in low-color situations
- Added a special quiet mode; see the How It Works chapter for details
- Replaced the ‘Quit’ button with the switch for the quiet mode
- The main window’s position is remembered, as is the setting of the quiet mode switch
- The main window can’t be closed anymore
- New ‘Open Connection…’ and ‘Close Connection’ items in the ‘File’ menu to control the connection

Version 1.1 - August 1995
- First full public release
- Full documentation
Master:
- Made About… dialog a modeless window
- Document windows now have a box in the lower left corner which displays how much of the picture has been calculated. Clicking on that area pops up a box with some more information.
- Replaced the ‘Status’ window by a ‘Slaves’ window containing a standard list with all connected Slaves (that is, it lists the names of the computers)
- Makes better use of the Slaves, eliminating network overhead
- All dialogs were redesigned, most notably the Preferences Dialog
- Uses AppleEvents for the ‘Auto-Launch Slave’ feature -> zoom rectangles, correct “open” icon in the Finder
- Calculates multiple fractals concurrently instead of fractal by fractal as in 1.0
- Switched to a horizontal stripe pattern for uncalculated parts of a fractal
- Balloon Help support almost completed
- Now includes a dictionary for Apple Script
Slave:
- New status window, complete with fancy lights, progress bar and 3D effects (256 color mode or better recommended, but not required)

Version 1.0 - July 1995
- First limited public release
Master:
- Balloon Help support incomplete

Future Plans
• MacTCP and Open Transport support. This would make it possible to use TCP/IP as the means of transportation instead of AppleTalk. Of course AppleTalk will still be supported. This would also pave the way to port the Slave to other platforms.
• Reimplementing the Master using PowerPlant
• Your suggestion here
• Better compression for the files (LZW)
• New technologies (more AppleEvents / scriptability, more Drag and Drop, AppleGuide, who knows)
• Another one of your suggestions here