FOTD October 28, 2003 Fractal image from November 11, 1988 Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: With today's fractal we take a trip back quite a way into the past century, to the year 1988, to an image that was saved in 16-color PCX format, without parameters. Whatever program created it apparently had no ability to write parameter files. As a result, the only way to see the image is to download it from Paul's web site at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> or from Scott's site at: <http://sdboyd.dyndns.org/~sdboyd/fotd/index.html> I converted the original PCX image to GIF format and sent it to Paul and Scott separately late last evening. Hopefully, it will have been posted by the time I post this discussion. I do not recall what program created the old image. I was using several primitive fractal generating programs at the time. The earliest version of Fractint I ever used is version 2.0, which was released around that time. I still have it stored on a disk somewhere, but I don't think that version 2.0, which had a very limited range of magnification, created the image. The image is apparently a scene in a perturbed Mandelbrot set. At the time, I was fascinated by the 'ghosts' of the original M-set that remained in the background of 'perturbed' sets. Today's image is a study of one of these 'ghost' buds, with two prominent spiral loops in the foreground, and many thread-like tentacles leading to a 'bulls-eye' at the head of the bud in the background. The two loops most likely inspired the original name "Alpha_Beta". The image stands out as the exception among the scores of humdrum images from the same period. If I knew the parameters, I would like to re-do it in the latest version of Fractint, but that is impossible. And if I don't cut this short, it will be impossible for me to catch up in the other work. So until my next appearance, take care, and it's only four days until the ongoing FOTD resumes. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com