Knute asked:
My question is this: As of October, 2017 is it really still impossible to run FractInt on Windows (esp. Win 7)?... (Not "virtually" and not WinFract). If so, then...
What's wrong with "virtrually"? You can run the original DOS Fractint under DOSBox on just about any platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android). Not even that difficult. Alternatively, if you have an unused copy of XP or other old Windows, you can run it under VirtualBox, and Fractint runs fine that way also. Jonathan has rebuilt Fractint using the SDL library, and this versions does indeed run natively under Windows 10. (See: https://fractint.net/ftp/experimental <https://fractint.net/ftp/experimental>/). Download the latest file in that directory. The SDL version still has bugs, but is probably usable. I'm guessing those folks who use Fractint regularly do so under DOS on an old machine. I will say that all the above solutions require using the very old DOS user interface, which is not too bad if you are an old Fractint user, but might stump a newcomer. This is a FAQ and I should undoubtedly put this information on the web page, which hasn't been seriously updated for a very long time. Tim