1.1 Getting Started
To start the program, enter FRACTINT at the DOS prompt. The program
displays an initial "credits" screen. If Fractint doesn't start
properly, please see Common Problems (p. 160).
Hitting <Enter> gets you from the initial screen to the main menu. You
can select options from the menu by moving the highlight with the cursor
arrow keys and pressing <Enter>, or you can enter commands directly.
As soon as you select a video mode, Fractint begins drawing an image -
the "full" Mandelbrot set if you haven't selected another fractal type.
For a quick start, after starting Fractint try one of the following:
If you have MCGA, VGA, or better: <F3>
If you have EGA: <F9>
If you have CGA: <F5>
Otherwise, monochrome: <F6>
After the initial Mandelbrot image has been displayed, try zooming into
it (see Zoom Box Commands (p. 22)) and color cycling (see Color Cycling
Commands (p. 23)). Once you're comfortable with these basics, start
exploring other functions from the main menu.
Help is available from the menu and at most other points in Fractint by
pressing the <F1> key.
AT ANY TIME, you can hit a command key to select a function. You do not
need to wait for a calculation to finish, nor do you have to return to
the main menu.
When entering commands, note that for the "typewriter" keys, upper and
lower case are equivalent, e.g. <B> and <b> have the same result.
Many commands and parameters can be passed to FRACTINT as command-line
arguments or read from a configuration file; see "Command Line
Parameters, Parameter Files, Batch Mode" for details.