[2167] in comp.os.os2.announce archive
SOFTWARE: XaoS 2.1 - fast portable realtime interactive fractal zoomer
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jan Hubicka)
Wed Dec 4 21:37:54 1996
To: os2ann.DISCUSS@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
Date: 5 Dec 1996 02:24:01 GMT
From: hubicka@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz (Jan Hubicka)
Reply-To: hubicka@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz (Jan Hubicka)
Reply-to: hubicka@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz (Jan Hubicka)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
>X a o S<
CREDITS:
Jan Hubicka (hubicka@paru.cas.cz)
- Zooming routines, ugly interfaces, palettes,drivers, autopilot
Thomas Marsh (tmarsh@austin.ibm.com)
- First zoomer, formulas, planes, X11 driver, inversions
Tapio K. Vocaldo(taps@rmx.com)
- Macintosh port
Thomas A. K. Kjaer(takjaer@daimi.aau.dk)
- OS/2 ports (320x200 graphics and text)
INTRODUCTION:
XaoS is a fast portable real-time interactive fractal zoomer. It displays
the Mandelbrot set (among other escape time fractals) and allows you zoom
smoothly into the fractal. Various coloring modes are provided for both
the points inside and outside the selected set. In addition, switching
between Julia and Mandelbrot fractal types and displaying planes is
provided. The first version was a poorly written Mandelbrot view by Thomas
later modified by Jan to support high frame-rate zooming. Other additions
were later made including autopilot (for those of you without drivers
licenses), palette changing, GIF saving, and fractal inversion.
SUPPORTED PLATFORMS(for now)
UNIXES:
X11 (8bpp pseudocolor 8,15,16,24,32 truecolor, StaticGray and
StaticColor only)
Curses (yes! text mode version available!)
Linux/SVGAlib (svgalib 1.2.10 or newer recommended)
OTHER OS:
plan9 (8bpp displays only)
MS-DOS (djgpp/allegro - supports VESA 2.0/1.0,
VGA - 320x200 and X modes,
S3, Cirrus, ET4000 in
resolutions 256x256-1200x1600)
Macintosh (displays with 8bit support only)
OS/2 (320x200 mode 13 and text mode)
MAIN CHANGES:
o added OS/2 port(graphics 320x200 and text) By Thomas A. K. Kjaer
o added Macintosh support by Tapio K. Vocadlo (thanks)
o speedups, bug fixes and cleanups
o new mkrealloctable algorithm that produces smoother animations
o autopilot is now timed by same way as all other parts are.
Now will act same on all computers(I hope)
o New README.interface
This helps others to extend XaoS or use its routines
in their software
UI Changes:
o status line
Plan 9 changes:
o correct timing. Thanks to Niger Roles and others on 9fans list
MS-DOS Changes:
o hides mouse at resizes - do not cause crashes anymore
X11 Changes:
o private colormap support
o added switches:
-private
-usedefault
-nomitshm
o improved autodetection of best available visual
o now works on truecolor SGI
REQUIREMENTS:
XaoS uses floating point math for its calculations. This may be slow on
some computers. The program was developed on a Pentium running at 120 MHz,
but it can work quite well on 486Dx/2. I also received nice letters from
users using XaoS at 386/40 or so. Coprocessor is _REALLY_ required. Faster
computer is better so alpha/600MHZ recommended.
To compile XaoS you need ANSI compliant compiler with _GOOD_
optimizations. Unix version uses configure script. Other platforms uses
different ways. GNU CC is highly recommended. Graphics drivers usually
have some additional requirements. (for example xlibraries for X11, djgpp
and allegro for DOS port) Also fast malloc/free routines are recommended
because they are called quite often (10 times per frame)
FTP:
XaoS comes in various files:
XaoS-2.1.tar.gz sources
XaoS*.rpm Red-hat packages
XaoS*.deb Debian packages
xaos21s.zip Sources in zip format for DOS users
xaos21b.zip .exe file for DOS
XaoS21-OS2.zip .exe file for OS/2
Macxaos_2.1.sea.hqx Macintosh distribution
All can be found at following site:
ftp://ftp.ta.jcu.cz/pub/linux/hubicka
UNIX version:
sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/Incoming (will be moved somewhere)
tsx-11.mit.edu now in /incoming..will be placed into
/pub/linux/binaries/usr.bin or
/pub/linux/sources/usr.bin
ftp.x.org /contrib/graphics
MS-DOS version:
ftp.simtel.net /pub/simtelnet/msdos/graphics
HOME-PAGE:
Europe: http://www.paru.cas.cz/~hubicka/XaoS/
U.S.: http://www.realtime.net/~amadeus/XaoS/
(This page is REALLY outdated!
browse European one!)
INSTALL:
Installation methods are described in the file "INSTALL".
USAGE:
Since version 2.0 XaoS have lots of command line options. They are depend
on its configuration, available drivers etc. See xaos -h for full help.
Usually more than one driver is available. XaoS after startup tries to
auto-detect best one.
For example in Linux case tests driver in following order:
SVGAlib
X11/MITSHM and then X11
curses
If you want to force text display instead of graphics you may use -driver
curses. Use xaos -list for list of all available drivers.
THANKS TO:
Stanislav "XaoS" Mikes
- for the name of our program
Borislav Deianov
- for sharing ideas
Isaac Newton
- for discovering his method
Benoit B. Mandelbrot
- for ordering the Julia sets
Linus Torvalds
- for the best operating system
Tim Wegner & Bert Tyler
- for Fractint
Darryl House
- for making Fractint's code readable
NO THANKS TO:
Bill Gates
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