April 2002 - Fractdev - mailman.xmission.com

CVS
by robin.b2＠ukonline.co.uk 16 Jun '02

16 Jun '02

Hi Tim, I'll have a go at hosting CVS if you like, I've yet to determine what my cable connection is like for such things so I'll stick a recent patch of xfractint in and set you and Jon up with accounts on my cygwin setup so you can use ssh to access the repository. I've also written up some quick howto's for the other UTron project coders so I'll post them as well. Probably get it done over the weekend, watch this space :-) >On another subject, what is the problem re Fractint and XP? Probably the same as with NT and win2K, they all use a HAL type setup so direct hardware access is out. Though 2K and XP can both use directx. I wonder if any windows whizz out there could do a directx wrapper in fractint for video and keyboard access, that'd be cool :-) Cheers, Robin. ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through UK Online webmail

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Xfractint and .tga files
by Jonathan Osuch 27 Apr '02

27 Apr '02

Tim, We need to take any Unix specific code in diskvidu.c and move it into diskvid.c (and change the Makefile to use it). There are changes in diskvid.c that I made to fix the problems we were having with the .tga file format. These changes obviously didn't get transferred over to diskvidu.c. Another reason I'd like to do this is that we normally reserve the use of extra Unix files to code that was in an assembly language file. Don't know why it was done to a C file, but we should fix it. Jonathan

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Float only xfractint
by Tim Wegner 27 Apr '02

27 Apr '02

A rough cut at the float only xfractint source is: http://www.fractint.org/ftp/current/linux/xfract20.2.04.fo.zip Tim

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Re: [Fractdev] Xfractint and .tga files
by pdeleeuw 27 Apr '02

27 Apr '02

Hi Guys, Is there a reason why we stay with targa? Surely it would be better to move to a more modern lossless true colour format such as PNG. This gives us compression and is viewable by a much larger range of applications. I have gone this way with ManpWIN. Just a thought. Regards, Paul. ---------------------------------------------------------- Paul de Leeuw Computers Central Coast Australia Email: pdeleeuw(a)deleeuw.com.au www: <http://www.deleeuw.com.au> ABN 72 360 822 562 ---------------------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: Jonathan Osuch <osuchj(a)avalon.net> Date: Friday, April 26, 2002 11:12 am Subject: [Fractdev] Xfractint and .tga files > Tim, > > We need to take any Unix specific code in diskvidu.c and move it > into > diskvid.c (and change the Makefile to use it). There are changes > in > diskvid.c that I made to fix the problems we were having with the > .tga file > format. These changes obviously didn't get transferred over to > diskvidu.c. > Another reason I'd like to do this is that we normally reserve the > use of > extra Unix files to code that was in an assembly language file. > Don't know > why it was done to a C file, but we should fix it. > > Jonathan > > _______________________________________________ > Fractdev mailing list > Fractdev(a)mailman.xmission.com > http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fractdev >

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Re: [Fractdev] Requst info on FRACTINT Variables for 8 bit to True colour conversion
by pdeleeuw 25 Apr '02

25 Apr '02

Hi Jonathan, The video mode I would use is the one set up in WINDOWS by the user. If they are running 15, 16, 24 or 32 bit mode, it doesn't matter as I just poke 24 bit R, G, B values into video RAM. I just let windows sort it out. I don't really worry about speed as most PCs now days are well above 100MHz and updating video RAM is not much of an issue as compared to the calculation speed for fractals. All I was asking for is that I can do my own thing in the windows part of the code and only do sufficient mods to the 'generic' code so I don't disturb the platform independent build. I want to be part of the bigger objective of platform independent code but I am very interested in getting a good version of windows fractint 'out there' as this is probably going to be the most popular platform. I was just ensuring that I synchronise my vision with that of the team. Regards, Paul. ---------------------------------------------------------- Paul de Leeuw Computers Central Coast Australia Email: pdeleeuw(a)deleeuw.com.au www: <http://www.deleeuw.com.au> ABN 72 360 822 562 ---------------------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: Jonathan Osuch <osuchj(a)avalon.net> Date: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 10:42 am Subject: Re: [Fractdev] Requst info on FRACTINT Variables for 8 bit to True colour conversion > On Tuesday 23 April 2002 07:10 am, PHD wrote: > > > I'm having a lot of trouble getting the 8 bit colour working but > actually> made a lot of progress with the 16 bit true colour. May > I suggest a > > compromise. I build a 16 bit windows engine but truncate its > implementation> to pass only 8 bits so the original fractint code > has minimal disturbance. > > The only down side to this is the true colour palette rotation > algorithm is > > very slow on older machines. > > Ideally, would you not want to be able to run in 8, 15, 16, 24, > and 32 bit > color depths? That way the user wouldn't have to change color > depths just to > run Fractint. > > The only reason I bring it up is that I have a program at home (I > don't > remember which one) that requires, as it puts it, thousands of > colors. Since > I was running 8-bit color for the speed, I changed to 24-bit > color. It > didn't like that because that wasn't thousands. I had to use 16- > bit color to > get it to run. > > Jonathan > > _______________________________________________ > Fractdev mailing list > Fractdev(a)mailman.xmission.com > http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fractdev >

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Re: [Fractdev] Requst info on FRACTINT Variables for 8 bit to True colour conversion
by pdeleeuw 24 Apr '02

24 Apr '02

Hi Tim, I do disagree because there is not a lot of benefit to just porting to WINDOWS. I already ahve a true colour version which works ok on 1/2 pass. This was also the motivation behind MANPWin. I think 32 bit and true colour are more urgent than getting functionality up to 20.2.4. It may be worth while (but dangerous) to keep winows stream separate from the LINUX stream but I am very reluctant to start a new branch if it is not required. Comments please. Thanks, PHD. ---------------------------------------------------------- Paul de Leeuw Computers Central Coast Australia Email: pdeleeuw(a)deleeuw.com.au www: <http://www.deleeuw.com.au> ABN 72 360 822 562 ---------------------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: Tim Wegner <twegner(a)swbell.net> Date: Friday, April 19, 2002 11:53 am Subject: Re: [Fractdev] Requst info on FRACTINT Variables for 8 bit to True colour conversion > > I notice that the existing code assumes that color (+dstack and > others) > > are all BYTE. For true colour to have any use, I need to pass a > minimum > > of 16 bits around (32K maxiter) and this is a substantial change > to > > FRACTINT code. > > My opinion is that you should not try to simultaneously port > Fractint > to Win32 and also add truecolor support. I suggest you first port > to > Win32. If we had a Win32 version of Fractint with good performance > and everything working, then we could REALLY start making changes > and > improvements, because we wouldn't need the DOS version any more. > Then adding truecolor could be done more gracefully. > > Of course you are free to disagree! > > Tim > > > _______________________________________________ > Fractdev mailing list > Fractdev(a)mailman.xmission.com > http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fractdev >

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Fwd: [comp.lang.c++.moderated] News: Watcom C++ goes open source
by Rich 23 Apr '02

23 Apr '02

This message has been forwarded from Usenet. To reply to the original author, use the email address from the forwarded message. Date: 22 Apr 2002 03:44:18 -0400 Groups: comp.lang.c++.moderated From: "Andrei Alexandrescu" <andrewalex(a)hotmail.com> Org: unknown Subject: News: Watcom C++ goes open source Id: <aa06ta$685o1$1(a)ID-14036.news.dfncis.de> ======== It will be interesting to see how things evolve. www.openwatcom.org Andrei [ Send an empty e-mail to c++-help(a)netlab.cs.rpi.edu for info ] [ about comp.lang.c++.moderated. First time posters: do this! ]

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Re: [Fractdev] Requst info on FRACTINT Variables for 8 bit to True colour conversion
by pdeleeuw 20 Apr '02

20 Apr '02

Hi Tim, > The benefit is to abandon the medium memory model. Fractint is > incredibly optimized to work amazingly well within that obsolete > platform, but further growth is impossible. OK OK I get the picture. But I am so keen to do both True COl as well as a port. I am putting all the windows code within WINDOWS only files or under #ifdef WIN32 so that nothing should be broken. I have all the plotting modes working now. I added WORD pstack for the put and get line functions and made a WORDmemcpy which overcame the problems. Let's see how we go. Regards, PHD. ---------------------------------------------------------- Paul de Leeuw Computers Central Coast Australia Email: pdeleeuw(a)deleeuw.com.au www: <http://www.deleeuw.com.au> ABN 72 360 822 562 ----------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [Fractdev] Requst info on FRACTINT Variables for 8 bit to True colour conversion
by pdeleeuw 20 Apr '02

20 Apr '02

Hi Jonathan, I got S-guessing, BT and Tess going for 16 bit true colour. However I have a memory bug before I can release the code. I've added vertical and horizontal blinds as well. Having lots of fun. Arb precision is next. Regards, PHD. ---------------------------------------------------------- Paul de Leeuw Computers Central Coast Australia Email: pdeleeuw(a)deleeuw.com.au www: <http://www.deleeuw.com.au> ABN 72 360 822 562 ---------------------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: Jonathan Osuch <osuchj(a)avalon.net> Date: Saturday, April 20, 2002 9:39 am Subject: Re: [Fractdev] Requst info on FRACTINT Variables for 8 bit to True colour conversion > On Thursday 18 April 2002 07:27 pm, PHD wrote: > > > I notice that the existing code assumes that color (+dstack and > others)> are all BYTE. For true colour to have any use, I need to > pass a minimum > > of 16 bits around (32K maxiter) and this is a substantial change to > > FRACTINT code. I have started using several #ifdef WIN32 but the > code> is starting to look messy. Should we all move to 16 bit colour > > variables? I notice that using my 16 bit put_line() does bizarre > things> to guessing and tessaral. > > So, define BYTE as 16 bits. Then see what breaks. > > However, consider that the iteration count (coloriter) is a long > variable and > what you may want to do is pass it back and forth. Or at least use > it in the > calculation to determine the truecolor values, since it is a global > variable > and hasn't been truncated as the color variable has. And, you may > want to > save the coloriter value to an array in memory. > > Yes, solid guessing and tessarel (and probably boundary tracing) > have a > problem with 16 bit colors. I ran into it with my Allegro port. > Never > solved it, however. It may be due to reading the color from the > screen and > not putting it on the screen. I had run into a similar problem > when I was > playing around with the true color modes in Fractint (yes, they are > there, > just no fancy coloring schemes). But, I can't recall how I fixed > it, other > than I'm pretty sure it was a problem with the getpixel routine. > > Jonathan > > _______________________________________________ > Fractdev mailing list > Fractdev(a)mailman.xmission.com > http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fractdev >

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Requst info on FRACTINT Variables for 8 bit to True colour conversion
by pdeleeuw 20 Apr '02

20 Apr '02

Hi Guys, I notice that the existing code assumes that color (+dstack and others) are all BYTE. For true colour to have any use, I need to pass a minimum of 16 bits around (32K maxiter) and this is a substantial change to FRACTINT code. I have started using several #ifdef WIN32 but the code is starting to look messy. Should we all move to 16 bit colour variables? I notice that using my 16 bit put_line() does bizarre things to guessing and tessaral. I am making good progress and should have a true colour 32 bit windows version with about WINFRACT v18 functionality out there in a week or two. I will then add bignum stuff and finally bring th code up to today. Comments please. Thanks, Paul. ---------------------------------------------------------- Paul de Leeuw Computers Central Coast Australia Email: pdeleeuw(a)deleeuw.com.au www: <http://www.deleeuw.com.au> ABN 72 360 822 562 ----------------------------------------------------------

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