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Kevin,
  Fractint doesn't  need to be on the same floppy 
that boots DOS.   Put Fractint 20.0 and its fractint.cfg 
on a separate 1.4MB floppy.   

One would want to boot DOS from a floppy and read 
Fractint from a 2nd floppy 
only for the purpose of establishing whether you 
are having problems with you video hardware or 
just with the XP  video drivers.

I also recommend putting textsafe=save into a 
SSTOOLS.INI file on the same floppy as Fractint 
since it is the most conservative and thus most 
likely to work method of insuring nondestructive 
text and video image swapping.

If you do not need the version of DOS that you 
boot to be able to read your hard drive (as in 
the scenario above) 
any relatively recent version of DOS should do.   
(Say, 4.0 on thru the DOSes that come with Win 9X.)

If you want DOS to be able to read a FAT32 
partition on your hard drive (as in the scenario 
that Tim Wegner described and I copied below) 
you need the DOS 
from Win98 or a DOS specially written to have 
this capability.   I am not certain, but I assume that 
Win ME has a DOS that can read FAT32.   The 
DOS from Win95 and earlier DOSes cannot read 
FAT32.

And Windows NT and 2000 have no DOS.

An afterthought - laptops often have non-standard 
video hardware so one can expect to find a 
few more problems and fewer working compatible 
video modes than found in the video hardware 
in desktops. 

For a good overview of Fractint and video 
hardware see Noel Giffin's: 
http://spanky.triumf.ca/www/fractint/hardware_modes.html

You will probably want to run Makefcfg 
(that comes with fractint) from 
DOS (put it on the floppy with Fractint or on a 
separate floppy) to have it create a fractint.cfg 
file compatible with your video hardware.

"Makefcfg 1.0  -- A Fractint video utility by 
The Stone Soup Group" 

"Makefcfg reads your VESA Video BIOS and 
writes a Fractint  fractint.cfg file with VESA 
video modes set up."

Re Tim's recommendation to "Make a FAT32 
partition for fractint"...   I recommend that you 
use Partition Commander or Partition Magic 
to do this.   DOS's FDISK will delete Win XP if 
you attempt to create a FAT32 partition on 
your existing hard drive.

You also wrote: 
> ...in the standard video setting, I get an image, then
> garbage when I try to leave it. If I set textsave=safe, I
> cannot leave it. I can use the windows key to switch out,
> and when I go back to fractint, the image is still there.
On my Gateway desktop machine running 
Win98 to safely go between a running 
copy of Fractint and back to the Windows desktop I: 
 - Put textsafe=save into sstools.ini
 - View any text screen in Fractint (say, hit Tab 
    while calculating an image)
 - Type the key combination <Alt>Enter to 
   change the fullscreen text to a window.
I can then use my Windows normally.

 - Click on the window title bar to select the 
   window (rather than in its interior) when you 
   want to go back to Fractint. 
 - Type the key combination <Alt>Enter to 
   change the windowed text to full screen. 
 - Hit Tab again and you are back to 
   calculating your image. 

Note that Fractint does not contine 
calculating your image while you are 
viewing the Tab or X screens. 

I do not know if this method will work under 
Win XP I but offer it as something that 
works consistantly in Win98 for me and 
might possibly be of help in Win XP.

If I don't adhere strictly to the above, the 
video in Fractint is corrupted or the 
Fractint task is terminated by Win98.

  <======<<     <======<<  <======<<
Will an XP user please let me know if the 
<Alt>Enter key combination is still bound 
to the action of switching between a 
windowed and full screen **DOS** text 
window?
  <======<<     <======<<  <======<<

The only way I have been able to 
figure out how to have Fractint 
continue calculating an image while 
I am using my machine for other windowed 
tasks is to use a Disk Video mode.   After 
starting a fractal calculation in Disk Video 
mode I then use <Alt>Enter  to make the text 
mode Disk Video window of Fractint a 
window on my desktop.   I move the window 
to where I can see the status message: 
"Image has been completed" when is done. 

I have had a dozen copies of Fractint 
calculating Disk Video images at the 
same time successfully with no problems 
other than a decrease in Windows' 
responsiveness. 

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>Kevin asked:
>> Ok what dos either can read NTFS or fit with fractint on a floppy?

Tim Wegner replied:
>Make a FAT32 partition for fractint and keep Fractint there. This 
>will be accessible under XP but also under DOS. You could then dual 
>boot or boot from a floppy, and run Fractint off the hard drive in 
>the FAT32 partition.

 - Hal Lane            hallane  @  compuserve.com

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