Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 18:48:49 +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 2.1 - fast realtime interactive fractal zoomer
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.94.961203184831.26187A-100000@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


                                    >X a o S<

CREDITS:
	Jan Hubicka	(hubicka AT paru DOT cas DOT cz) 
	                - Zooming routines, ugly interfaces,
			  palettes,drivers, autopilot
	Thomas Marsh	(tmarsh AT austin DOT ibm DOT com)
	                - First zoomer, formulas, planes,
		          X11 driver, inversions
	Tapio K. Vocaldo(taps AT rmx DOT com)
	                - Macintosh port
	Thomas A. K. Kjaer(takjaer AT daimi DOT aau DOT dk)
			- OS/2 ports (320x200 graphics and text)
	


INTRODUCTION:
	XaoS is a fast portable real-time interactive fractal zoomer.
	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.

SUPPORTED PLATFORMS(for now)
        UNIXES:
	  X11 (8bpp pseudocolor 8,15,16,24,32 truecolor, StaticGray and 
	       StaticColor only)
	  Curses (yes! text mode version available!)
          Linux/SVGAlib (svgalib 1.2.10 or newer recomended)
	OTHER OS:
	plan9      (8bpp displays only)
	MS-DOS     (djgpp/allegro - supports VESA 2.0/1.0, 
	                            VGA - 320x200 and X modes, 
		    		    S3, Cirrus, ET4000 in
				    resolutions 256x256-1200x1600)
	Macintosh  (displays with 8bit support only)
	OS/2       (320x200 mode 13 and text mode)

MAIN CHANGES:
	o added OS/2 port(graphics 320x200 and text) By Thomas A. K. Kjaer
	o added macintosh support by Tapio K. Vocadlo (thanks)
	o speedups, bugfixes and cleanups
	o new mkrealloctable algorithm that produces smoother animations
        o autopilot is now timed by same way as all other parts are.
	  Now will act same on all computers(I hope)
	o New README.interface
	   This helps others to extend XaoS or use its routines
	   in their software
    UI Changes:
	o status line
    Plan 9 changes:
	o correct timming. Thanks to Niger Roles and others on 9fans list
    MS-DOS Changes:
	o hiddes mouse at resizes - do not cause crashes anymore
    X11 Changes:
        o private colormap support
	o added switches:
	   -private
	   -usedefault
	   -nomitshm
	o improved autodetection of best available visual
	o now works on truecolor SGI

REQUIREMENTS:
	XaoS 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.
	Faster computer is better so alpha/600MHZ recomended.  

	To compile XaoS you nneed ANSI compliant compiler woth _GOOD_ 
	optimizations.  Unix version uses configure script. Other 
	platforms uses different ways.  GNU CC is highly recommended. 
	Graphics drivers usually have some additional requirements. 
	(for example xlibraries for X11, djgpp and allegro for dos port)
	Also fast malloc/free routines are recomended because they
	are called quite often (10 times per frame)

FTP:
	XaoS comes in various files:
	XaoS-2.1.tar.gz		sources
	XaoS*.rpm		Red-hat packages
	XaoS*.deb		Debian packages
	xaos21s.zip		Sources in zip format for DOS users
	xaos21b.zip		.exe file for DOS
	XaoS21-OS2.zip		.exe file for OS/2
	Macxaos_2.1.sea.hqx     Macintosh distribution

	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
		        /pub/linux/sources/usr.bin
	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/ 
	U.S.:	http://www.realtime.net/~amadeus/XaoS/ 
			(This page is REALLY outdated!
		  	 browse European one!)

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