As the humble benficiary of "free" software, I would feel it would be presumtuous and arrogant of me to "demand" upgrades. On the other hand I probably share with other happy, grateful, Fractint users a yearning for at least some "improvements" that would make Fractint a more perfect piece of software. A.) Improving and speeding up the image rendering time, especially when rendering to a large file for printng. B.) A feature that allowed editng and changing formulas and parameters "on the fly". (I presently kludge my way through that using "Paste & Go"). C.) A more universal video module that works in W95/W98/W2K/WXP, and with the newer video cards. I would definitely appreciate and use any "free" upgrades when and as they appeare. I would also gladly "pay" for the upgrades as well. I paid for UF 2 & 3, and I still use Fractint more than I use UF. Fractint has provided me with 1000s of hours of entertainment and pleasure. If Spanky Industires (Grin) Stone Soup Software Group (Are they Still alive) or whoever were to offer a 32 bit "Windoze 98/95/2000/XP" version of FRactint that still had all the features found in the original DOS version of Fractint I would definitely pay for it. Why not? It's one thing to sit and whine and beg for "freebies", but if all of us chimed in and said that we'd actually "PAY" for these upgrades, then I suspect certain software developing types would take heed and get "inspired" to do the work that needs to get done. So let's do a "straw pole" to establish who here is willing to "PAY" for an upgrade to Fractint? Money Talks! TG ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark A. Freeze" <mfreeze@mailent.com> To: <fractint@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 10:25 AM Subject: [Fractint] My two cents worth...
I found out about fractals by downloading a screen saver from AOL in 1994. I wondered how the image was made and started to investigate, which has taught me a lot, showed me even more, and opened a whole new artistic outlet for me. Before fractals, I thought that math could never equal art, and if it did, it would most certainly be art only to me and my geek friends. But Fractint changed all of that.
My point is this: The screen saver that I downloaded only works with a 256 color palette. I never use it anymore. If I was just now looking for a new screen saver, I might have never downloaded it because of that fact, and I might have never learned about fractals. The people who say that Fractint should be run only on DOS boxes and has no place or reason to be on XP, etc... are just plain wrong, in my opinion. To run Fractint only on DOS limits its exposure and thereby limits its forward movement. The fact is that less and less people are using DOS & Windows 9x everyday. Microsoft just announced that they would start the first phase of end-of-life processing for Win 9x products in June of 2003. This means that progressively fewer people will have access to Fractint. I wonder what Mandelbrot himself might say if asked "Should we limit our research to a 20+ year old technology platform (even if it is working well), or start the move to current technology?" To me, Fractals are about exploration, moving to new boundaries, discovery, vision. They aren't about sameness and consistency.
I say to limit Fractint to DOS is ridiculous. It is essentially a death sentence for such a great product. Maybe not a death sentence to some hardcore users, but most certainly to new, younger users. I'm sure there are new people 'discovering' Fractint on DOS, but that number dwindles daily. From reading the many posts to this group I know that I don't have the mathematical or programming skills that some of you have, or I'd try to make it work myself, but still I say "Move On!", "Progress!", "Discover!", "Learn!" The reason I joined this group was because I thought that it would embody the true spirit of the fractal - always digging deeper, looking for more.
I'd be interested to hear what others think, but that's just my two cents worth. This situation reminds me of a saying that one of my old bosses used to tell me... "If we don't move towards the future, then we'll be alone in the pasture."
Waiting for the mothership, Mark.
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