On Sat, 12 Jun 2004, Paul N. Lee wrote:
Tim Wegner wrote:
Along the same lines, an easier approach would be to put Fractint on a bootable CD with freedos. ........... We could make a Linux bootable CD that ran Xfractint.....
Or better still, have a FractInt CD that could be dual purpose for most any environment, whether Win-9x, NT, XP, MAC, Unix, Linux, etc...
Bootable CDs are _usually_ portable (this is part of the point behind ISO 9660), but the bootstrap code for most of the above isn't licensed to the public, so the boot options would be restricted to FreeDOS, Caldera opendos (maybe), Linux, and Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD). Pick one to cut down on the space required for a kernel. Pick another if it's possible to make a CD that can boot both a Mac and a PC.
The CD could also contain a complete collection of all the previous versions of FractInt through the years.
As far as I can tell, Mister Osuch is doing a good job of that in the code itself. If you don't know what I mean, then try using reset=1960 in a parameter file with outside=atan. You should end up with 180 colours in recent versions of FRACTINT, too.
And if there is still room on the CD, a copy of the "Fractal Creations, 2nd Edition" companion CD. Plus, have the FractInt manual available in Text, MS-Word document, PDF format, and HTML.
This would make the CD something like a "Deluxe Colletor's Edition". Or if ready by this August, a "16th Year Anniversary Edition".
The documentation, methinks, should be readable with software on the CD (to fit with making it bootable, it should be essentially self-contained). That would mean GhostScript for PDF (reading and writing) and a browser for HTML, perhaps Mozilla, Opera or Lynx or all three. The advantage of Lynx is that it supports its own LynxProg URL format that could call up XFractint to render demonstrations. (Lynx runs Pine and Tin on my remote from LynxProg URLs). I might be able to do something similar with the file extension registry in other browsers -- perhaps with a recorder macro or JavaScript for those who would stick with reading the CD from the operating system that they know. _______ Disabling "Third Party Browser Extensions" is a good way to make your browser do what you want, instead of what someone else wants.