Fractint is a
freeware
Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...
computer program
A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components.
A computer progra ...
to render and display many kinds of
fractals. The program originated on
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...
, then ported to the
Atari ST,
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...
, and
Macintosh. During the early 1990s, Fractint was the definitive fractal generating program for personal computers.
The name is a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words[integer
An integer is the number zero (), a positive natural number (, , , etc.) or a negative integer with a minus sign ( −1, −2, −3, etc.). The negative numbers are the additive inverses of the corresponding positive numbers. In the language ...](_blank)
'', since the first versions of Fractint used only integer arithmetic (also known as
fixed-point arithmetic), for faster rendering on computers without math
coprocessors. Since then,
floating-point arithmetic
In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can b ...
and
arbitrary-precision arithmetic
In computer science, arbitrary-precision arithmetic, also called bignum arithmetic, multiple-precision arithmetic, or sometimes infinite-precision arithmetic, indicates that calculations are performed on numbers whose digits of precision are l ...
modes have been added.
Features
FractInt can draw most kinds of fractals that have appeared in the literature. It also has a few "fractal types" that are not strictly speaking fractals, but may be more accurately described as
display hacks. These include
cellular automata.
History
Fractint originally appeared in 1988 as FRACT386, a computer program for rendering fractals very quickly on the
Intel 80386 processor using integer arithmetic. Most 386 processors of the era did not come with
floating point units (
Intel 80387), so the integer approach was much faster.
The early versions of FRACT386 were written by Bert Tyler, who based it on a
Mandelbrot generator for a TI-based processor that used integer math and decided to try programming something similar for his 386 machine.
[Tyler, Bert and Wegner, Timothy, ''Fractal Creations, 2nd edition'', Waite Group Press, 1993, , p. 461]
In February 1989, the program was renamed Fractint. In July 1990, it was ported to the
Atari ST, with the math routines rewritten in
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sect ...
assembly language by Howard Chu.
See also
*
Fractal art
*
Fractal-generating software
References
Further reading
* Michael Frame,
Benoit Mandelbrot, ''Fractals, Graphics, and Mathematics Education'', Volume 58 of
Mathematical Association of America Notes, Cambridge University Press, 2002, , pp. 57–59 (and used throughout the book)
External links
Mirror of now-gone spanky.triumf.ca Fractint siteFractint Development Team WWW pages
via the Wayback Machine
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and s ...
{{Computer science
1988 software
Fractal software
Numerical software
Cellular automaton software
DOS software
Atari ST software
Proprietary freeware for Linux