Xref: utzoo comp.theory:1389 sci.math:14593 alt.fractals:801
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!usc!jarthur!rspangle
From: rspangle@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Froot Loop)
Newsgroups: comp.theory,sci.math,alt.fractals
Subject: Re: High precision Mandelbrot set
Keywords: extended precision, Mandelbrot set, "zooms"
Message-ID: <10288@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Date: 9 Jan 91 05:15:47 GMT
References: <1991Jan8.142354.1732@pegasus.com>
Followup-To: comp.theory
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Lines: 34

In article <1991Jan8.142354.1732@pegasus.com> shaw@pegasus.com (Sandy Shaw) writes:
>My question is : Is there there a way short of using an extended precision
>math package to gain further detail upon continuing the zoom? Perhaps some 
>sort of renormalization? Any thoughts on this question or references would
>be greatly appreciated.

Well, I can think of two alternatives.

One would be using Mathematica, which supports arbitrary precision.  I hope
you have a fast computer, though.

Another would be to write your own floating point routines in assembly.
(So take a 20-byte structure, use 1 bit for sign, 15 bits for implied base-16
exponent, and use the other 144 bits for the mantissa.  All you have to
do are multiplies and adds, which aren't too difficult.

If you REALLY don't care about speed, you can do routines which use an
array of say 100 characters as a 100-digit mantissa, and an integer as the
exponent.  So your number would look like this as a C structure:

struct really_f___ing_big {
	char mantissa[100];
	int exponent;
	char sign;	/* +1 if positive, -1 if negative */

I wrote a package that did something like the latter in Turbo Pascal 2.0
about 7 years ago; it's slow, but not terribly hard to code.


-- 
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|   Randy Spangler                   |   Get your mind out of the gutter   |
|   rspangle@jarthur.claremont.edu   |   you're blocking my periscope      |
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