On Fri, 9 Jul 2004, Mark Christenson wrote:
<de-lurk>
*** Prenatal Advisory: WAY off-topic. Penance forthcoming. ***
Ja no, Merf,
I usually take little notice of yer postings, butt eye must chime in on a couple of points.
Maugham's Thought: Only mediocre people are always at their best.
My computer says "Designed for Windows NT and 98" and I don't even believe that. (If I did, then I wouldn't hav tried Linux). As far as I'm concerned it was designed for DOS and Win3.1, which would be a bit nicer if MicroSoft's Win32s would install again (because I can quit from it without rebooting the machine).
God, I long for the days of Win 3.1. I had to upgrade from my old flintlock 486/80 to a Win 98 PII so I could run Java and burn CDs. I hoped I would adjust to the '95 and subsequent limitations and quirks, but still:
The Java is part of Opera 3.62 that I run. Burning? I use XCDRoast to burn CDs that are MS-DOS compatible. This much I can do with Linux, but I'm still not using Linux for the internet, which I imagine to be a shame, but I like Pine and Lynx on the remote AIX for performance over a phone line. (...)
I know I should move to some Linux-based solution, but am afeared of compatability issues with old DOS and Windoze apps...
You and me both. I'm reluctant to release a .exe (person to person, tutored release) until I can figure out why PCTOOLS 4.3 says that it can't read the FAT on my hard-drive. The problem crops up only when I boot the thing with a floppy for Windows 98 or another one for Windows XP. (I really don't know what it means, but until I've eliminated the possibility of a boot-sector virus...) Most of the time, I'm happy with doing the renderings at home and burning them to a CD-R as a web page. The other way is more entertaining, though. I tell someone else how to make FRACTINT do what I want. Or, I put some web pages and par files and fractint onto a floppy along with a batch file, then we watch the thing develop and bask in the glow of a computer that obviously has a nearly saturated CPU. It really is more fun that way, because someone can contribute once she knows her way around the program. (It wouldn't go over nicely at a print shop, though).
Actually, this contraption has two warning labels. The other is "Intel Inside", but at least Linux wil tel you if you hav one of their buggy chips.
I hear you. The old 486 box had an AMD chipset and was considerably more stable than the Intel/PII/Win98 system. Of course maybe it's the OS...
I use two memory managers. One of them supports more _RAM_ and works more nicely with WordPerfect 5.2+ (I "stole" it from a version of Caldera open DOS that won't let me rename files), but I don't know how to shell out of it safely. The other from M$ is more stable, but it only supports 64meg of my 192. Neither supports the 2gig of virtual memory I can use under Linux, and neither works as a disk cache when I'm not using the RAM, but most of the time I don't need more than 64meg. I might get around to a full transition to Linux (i.e. buy a PPP account and start using it as such as well as learning the Gimp and a front end for TeX), but I've been too busy with more basic matters to hope for getting around to that before the winter. (It's a good thing that I know how to make my external modem maintain a connection through a reboot). _______ Rohdove { ; Three multiplications outpaces exponentiation on a PII. z=fn1(pixel), c=fn2(pixel), d=fn3(pixel): z= z^imag(P1)/d +c, |z| <=real(P1) } Guitar { ; This is what The Stone Soup Group rocks with. ; 48.56s/megapixel with 350Mhz PII. reset=2003 type=formula formulafile=rohdove.par formulaname=rohdove function=cotan/conj/sin passes=t center-mag=1.67158/0/0.086/1.25 params=4/3 float=y maxiter=255 inside=0 outside=atan invert=1/-0.865/0 symmetry=xaxis periodicity=0 colors=@altern.map } Guitarh { ; Three by five of 1050 by 990 is good for 10.5" ; by 16.5" at 300 dpi. For truecolour, this is ; good enough for 600 dpi when printing with sixteen ; bits per pixel. reset=2003 type=formula formulafile=guitar.par formulaname=rohdove function=cotan/conj/sin passes=t center-mag=1.65971/0/0.08/1.45/90/3.88578058618804789e-016 params=4/3 float=y maxiter=255 inside=0 outside=imag invert=1/-0.865/0 periodicity=0 colors=000z0e<3>z00<3>ze0zo0zz0<3>Lz0Bz00z0<3>0ze0zo0zz<3>0Lz0Bz00z<3>\ e0zo0zz0z<3>z0Lz0Bz00<3>ze0zo0zz0<3>Lz0Bz00z0<3>0ze0zo0zz<3>0Lz0Bz00z<\ 3>e0zo0zz0z<3>z0Lz0Bz00<3>ze0zo0zz0<3>Lz0Bz00z0<3>0ze0zo0zz<3>0Lz0Bz00\ z<3>e0zo0zz0z<3>z0Lz0Bz00<3>ze0zo0zz0<3>Lz0Bz00z0<3>0ze0zo0zz<3>0Lz0Bz\ 00z<3>e0zo0zz0z<3>z0Lz0Bz00<3>ze0zo0zz0<3>Lz0Bz00z0<3>0ze0zo0zz<3>0Lz0\ Bz00z<3>e0zo0zz0z<3>z0Lz0Bz00<3>ze0zo0zz0<3>Lz0Bz00z0<3>0ze0zo0zz<3>0L\ z0Bz00z<3>e0zo0zz0z<3>z0Lz0Bz00<3>ze0zo0zz0<3>Lz0Bz00z0<3>0ze0zo0zz<3>\ 0Lz0Bz00z<5>z0z<3>z0L } Gavel { ; Parameter files RARELY need the version ; of FracTint mentioned in the comments. reset=2003 type=formula formulafile=rohdove.par formulaname=rohdove function=cotan/conj/exp passes=t center-mag=0.214435/0/0.6666667/0.6 params=512/2 float=y maxiter=255 inside=0 outside=atan invert=5/3/0 symmetry=xaxis periodicity=0 colors=@altern.map } GGavel { reset=2003 type=formula formulafile=rohdove.par formulaname=rohdove function=cotanh/conj/exp passes=t center-mag=0.214435/3.33067e-016/0.6813158/0.6108 params=512/2 float=y maxiter=255 inside=0 outside=atan invert=5/3/0 symmetry=xaxis periodicity=0 colors=@altern.map } LadyBug { ; Fractint Version 2003 Patchlevel 1 reset=2003 type=formula formulafile=rohdove.par formulaname=rohdove function=conj/conj/exp passes=t center-mag=-0.178/0/1/0.77 params=4/2 float=y maxiter=255 inside=0 outside=atan invert=0.0037/-0.794/0 symmetry=xaxis periodicity=0 colors=@altern.map } BreastPlate { ; Fractint Version 2003 Patchlevel 1 reset=2003 type=formula formulafile=rohdove.par formulaname=rohdove function=asinh/conj/exp passes=t center-mag=0.149464/0/1.528167/2 params=16/2 float=y maxiter=255 inside=0 outside=atan invert=0.5/0.37/0 symmetry=xaxis periodicity=0 colors=@altern.map } Snohshuu { reset=2003 type=formula formulafile=rohdove.par formulaname=rohdove function=ident/ident/tan passes=t center-mag=1.49257/0/1 params=16/3 float=y maxiter=255 inside=0 outside=atan invert=0.162/1.62/0 symmetry=xaxis periodicity=0 colors=@altern.map } Skrewdrop { reset=2003 type=formula formulafile=rohdove.par formulaname=rohdove function=ident/ident/tanh passes=t center-mag=0.391069/1.69498/0.9972988/1.4629/0/21.1879142470290667 params=16/3 float=y maxiter=255 inside=0 outside=atan invert=0.09/0.3141592653589/1.6666666666666 symmetry=xaxis periodicity=0 colors=@altern.map }