Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 08:54:55 +0100 (MET)
From: Jan Hubicka <hubicka AT atrey DOT karlin DOT mff DOT cuni DOT cz>
To: djgpp-announce AT delorie DOT com
Subject: XaoS 2.0 - fast realtime fractal zoomer
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.94.961031085440.22323A-100000@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

					
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                                    >X a o S<

CREDITS:
	Jan Hubicka	(hubicka AT limax DOT paru DOT cas DOT cz)
	Thomas Marsh	(amadeus AT bga DOT com) (not available for now)

INTRODUCTION:
	XaoS is a real-time interactive fractal zoomer for DOS, Plan9, X11 and
	SVGAlib but it can be easily ported to all architectures where graphics
	library and _GOOD_ optimizing ANSI c compiler (i.e. gcc) is available.
	It displays the Mandelbrot set (among other escape time fractals) and 
	allows you zoom smoothly into the fractal.  Various coloring modes are 
	provided for both the points inside and outside the selected set. In 
	addition, switching between Julia and Mandelbrot fractal types and
	displaying planes is provided. The first version was a poorly written 
	Mandelbrot view by Thomas later modified by Jan to support high frame-rate 
	zooming. Other additions were later made including autopilot (for those of 
	you without drivers licenses), palette changing, GIF saving, and fractal 
	inversion.
MAIN CHANGES:
        o Configure script.
	o Added biomorph outcoloring mode
	o added new curses based interface. Have you ever seen realtime 
	  256 color fractal zoomer with text based output? :)
	o Now just one compact binary for all available drivers
	o Faster startup..(three times)
	o Autopilot not detects "oscillating" and too deep zoom so it can work
	  to infinity...can run as demo w/o any user input..
	  also auto detects major changes done by user and reinitializes variables...
	  so it restarts after changing of fractal type and so on..
	o many many bugfixes
	o many many new bugs!
	  But remember! Its not bug! Its feature!
   Ugly interface changes:
        o Completely redesigned-hardware depended parts are now
	  coded as drivers with common interface-easier adding
	  of new architectures
	  but looks as ugly as in previous releases :)
	o Added changing of display driver on the fly
	o Displays calculation status
	o Possibility of interrupting calculation
	o Reduced size of output program
	  (for example SVGAlib version from 48 to 37)
   PLAN9 port changes:
        o During porting to new ui interface I found nasty bug in displaying.
	  Now plan9 port is IMWHO surprisingly fast. 8c produces quite good code.
	  still crashes in higher resolution and has color problems
	o added keys [,] for changing iterations and ;,' for speed
	o Better palette handling

FTP:
	XaoS comes in various files:
	XaoS-2.0.tar.gz		sources
	XaoS*.rpm		Red-hat packages
	XaoS*.deb		Debian packages (comming bit later than other ones..)
	xaos20s.zip		Sources in zip format for DOS users
	xaos20b.zip		.exe file for DOS

	All can be found at following site:
	ftp.ta.jcu.cz	/pub/linux/hubicka

	UNIX version:
	sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/Incoming (will be moved somewhere)
	tsx-11.mit.edu	now in /incoming..will be placed into 
	                /pub/linux/binaries/usr.bin
		        or    /sources
	ftp.x.org	/contrib/graphics

	MS-DOS version:
	ftp.simtel.net  /pub/simtelnet/msdos/graphics

HOME-PAGE:
	Europe:	http://www.paru.cas.cz/~hubicka/XaoS/  (new tutorial included)
	U.S.:	http://www.realtime.net/~amadeus/XaoS/ (This page is REALLY 
	                                                outdated!
							browse European one!)

REQUIREMENTS:
	XaoS, by default, uses floating point math for its calculations.
	This may be slow on some computers. The program was developed on a
	Pentium running at 120 MHz, but it can work quite well on 486Dx/2.
	I also received nice letters from users using XaoS at 386/40 or so.
	Coprocessor is _REALLY_ required.

	To compile XaoS, DOS, Plan9 or UNIX with X11 or curses (or SVGAlib 
	for Linux) is required. We are discussing the possibility of porting 
	it to OS/2 and Amiga. Your C compiler must be ANSI compliant. 
	GNU CC is highly recommended. For now XaoS requires 8bpp Pseudo-Color, 
	15,16,24 or 32bpp True-color modes are required for X11 driver.

INSTALL:
	Installation methods are described in the file "INSTALL".

USAGE:
	Since version 2.0 XaoS have lots of command line options. 
	They are depend on its configuration, available drivers etc.
	See xaos -h for full help. Usually more than one driver is
	available. XaoS after startup tries to auto-detect best one.
	For example in Linux case tests driver in following order:
	  SVGAlib
	  X11/MITSHM and then X11
	  curses
	If you want to force text display instead of graphics you may
	use -driver curses. Use xaos -list for list of all available
	drivers.

THANKS TO:
	Stanislav "XaoS" Mikes
		- for the name of our program
	Borislav Deianov
		- for sharing ideas
	Isaac Newton
		- for discovering his method
	Benoit B. Mandelbrot
		- for ordering the Julia sets
	Linus Torvalds
		- for the best operating system
	Tim Wegner & Bert Tyler
		- for Fractint
	Darryl House
		- for making Fractint's code readable

NO THANKS TO:
	Bill Gates