Version 17.2, 3/92
- Fixed a bug which caused Fractint to hang when a Continuous Potential
Bailout value was set (using the 'Y') screen and then the 'Z' screen
was activated.
- fixed a bug which caused "batch=yes" runs to abort whenever any
key was pressed.
- bug-fixes in the Stereo3D/Targa logic from Marc Reinig.
- Fractint now works correctly again on FPU-less 8088s when
zoomed deeply into the Mandelbrot/Julia sets
- The current image is no longer marked as "not resumable" on a
Shell-To-Dos ("D") command.
- fixed a bug which prevented the "help" functions from working
properly during fractal-type selection for some fractal types.
Version 17.1, 3/92
- fixed a bug which caused PCs with no FPU to lock up when they
attempted
to use some fractal types.
- fixed a color-cycling bug which caused the palette to single-step
when you pressed ESCAPE to exit color-cycling.
- fixed the action of the '<' and '>' keys during color-cycling.
Version 17.0, 2/92
- New fractal types (but of course!):
Lyapunov Fractals from Roy Murphy (see Lyapunov Fractals (p. 73) for
details)
'BifStewart' (Stewart Map bifurcation) fractal type and new bifurcation
parameters (filter cycles, seed population) from Kevin Allen.
Lorenz3d1, Lorenz3d3, and Lorenz3d4 fractal types from Scott Taylor.
Note that a bug in the Lorenz3d1 fractal prevents zooming-out from
working with it at the moment.
Martin, Circle, and Hopalong (culled from Dewdney's Scientific American
Article)
Lots of new entries in fractint.par.
New ".L" files (TILING.L, PENROSE.L)
New 'rand()' function added to the 'type=formula' parser
- New fractal generation options:
New 'Tesseral' calculation algorithm (use the 'X' option list to select
it) from Chris Lusby Taylor.
New 'Fillcolor=' option shows off Boundary Tracing and Tesseral
structure
inside=epscross and inside=startrail options taken from a paper by
Kenneth Hooper, with credit also to Clifford Pickover
New Color Postscript Printer support from Scott Taylor.
Sound= command now works with <O>rbits and <R>ead commands.
New 'orbitdelay' option in X-screen and command-line interface
New "showdot=nn" command-line option that displays the pixel currently
being worked on using the specified color value (useful for those
lloooonngg images being calculated using solid guessing - "where is it
now?").
New 'exitnoask=yes' commandline/SSTOOLS.INI option to avoid the final
"are you sure?" screen
New plasma-cloud options. The interface at the moment (documented here
and here only because it might change later) lets you:
- use an alternate drawing algorithm that gives you an earlier preview
of the finished image. - re-generate your favorite plasma cloud
(say, at a higher resolution)
by forcing a re-select of the random seed.
New 'N' (negative palette) option from Scott Taylor - the documentation
at this point is: Pressing 'N' while in the palette editor will invert
each color. It will convert only the current color if it is in 'x' mode,
a range if in 'y' mode, and every color if not in either the 'x' or 'y'
mode.
- Speedups:
New, faster floating-point Mandelbrot/Julia set code from Wesley Loewer,
Frank Fussenegger and Chris Lusby Taylor (in separate contributions).
Faster non-386 integer Mandelbrot code from Chris Lusby Taylor, Mike
Gelvin and Bill Townsend (in separate contributions)
New integer Lsystems logic from Nicholas Wilt
Finite-Attractor fixups and Lambda/mandellambda speedups from Kevin
Allen.
GIF Decoder speedups from Mike Gelvin
- Bug-fixes and other enhancements:
Fractint now works with 8088-based AMSTRAD computers.
The video logic is improved so that (we think) fewer video boards will
need "textsafe=save" for correct operation.
Fixed a bug in the VESA interface which effectively messed up adapters
with unusual VESA-style access, such as STB's S3 chipset.
Fixed a color-cycling bug that would at times restore the wrong colors
to your image if you exited out of color-cycling, displayed a 'help'
screen, and then returned to the image.
Fixed the XGA video logic so that its 256-color modes use the same
default 256 colors as the VGA adapter's 320x200x256 mode.
Fixed the 3D bug that caused bright spots on surfaces to show as black
blotches of color 0 when using a light source.
Fixed an image-generation bug that sometimes caused image regeneration
to restart even if not required if the image had been zoomed in to the
point that floating-point had been automatically activated.
Added autodetection and 640x480x256 support for the Compaq Advanced VGA
Systems board - I wonder if it works?
Added VGA register-compatible 320x240x256 video mode.
Fixed the "logmap=yes" option to (again) take effect for continuous
potential images. This was broken in version 15.x.
The colors for the floating-point algorithm of the Julia fractal now
match the colors for the integer algorithm.
If the GIF Encoder (the "Save" command) runs out of disk space, it now
tells you about it.
If you select both the boundary-tracing algorithm and either "inside=0"
or "outside=0", the algorithm will now give you an error message instead
of silently failing.
Updated 3D logic from Marc Reinig.
Minor changes to permit IFS3D fractal types to be handled properly using
the "B" command.
Minor changes to the "Obtaining the latest Source" section to refer to
BBS access (Peter Longo's) and mailed diskettes (the Public (Software)
Library).