Mandelbrot Images (advertisement) Jake Davies 3
High Powered Mandelbroids R.J.F. Stewart 4
The Numbers Game Dr Keith Wood 6
Speed, Mandelbrot and the Archimedes Tom Marlow 8
Fractal Art (advertisement) Jake Davies 9
The Henon Attractor Peter Davidson 10
Further Investigations of a Chaotic Dynamical System John C. Topham 13
YAMS - Yet Another Mandelbrot Speed-up D. Stevenson 16
The Third Larry T. Cobb Prize Awards Larry Cobb 19
Dynamical Systems and Fractals (Book Review) Dr Ian Entwistle 20
Editorial
This is the last issue in the first volume, and we are now asking people to renew their subscriptions. A few of you have renewed already, and we hope that we have made a note of you all. If you have already renewed, or if you have been successful in getting an article printed in the first volume, then you will have been sent issue 7 with this issue. If you should have had issue 7 and didn't get it, then please complain, stating either when you sent in an early renewal or in which issue your article appeared that qualified you for a free subscription.
We are changing the rules slightly for the next and subsequent volumes of six issues. The vast majority of our readers like the policy of having the opportunity to type in short programs and play with them. Therefore we are restricting free subscriptions to the following volume to articles of this type. The programs don't have to be complete - a practical article like the one by Lewis Siegel on 3D Mandelbrots would count, or the lines of BASIC given in Dr Ian Entwistle's Quaternions. We are not totally rejecting other articles - we'll still print them as space permits.
I hope that we have managed to satisfy most of our subscribers, and that you will all renew your subscriptions. At the time of writing we had 363 subscribers, including those who are on exchange subscriptions with another periodical, and those who contributed to issue 0. We have had 835 enquirers, all of whom had a free sample. Thus our take-up was 43%. Early on we "chivvied" those that didn't respond, but the number of additional take-ups was so small we shan't be repeating the exercise.
I have had issues 6 and 7 printed concurrently, so if you renew your subscription you will get an immediate fulfilment of another issue right away.
I have tried to answer individual enquiries promptly, favouring brief answers when busy as opposed to making people wait a long time. One or two letters go astray, so if you don't get an answer when you expect one, or have not had all this issues up to and including no 6, please complain.
The next volume will, I hope, include my ambition of some articles on making fractal music. Mr Richard V. Robinson, of Studio Chaos, P.O. Box 31700, Seattle, WA98103 U. S. A. is anxious to correspond on this, and we can now offer his first cassette (stereo), which we sell for a copying fee of �4 (not USA: USA send $7 direct to Mr Robinson.) The material is copyright free, but Mr Robinson would like his two sided leaflet to be copied and sent as well. We hope to be printing articles on this in the new volume. I have been promised some articles on neural networks, and if there are interesting experiments that can be performed on home computers, then the topic has sufficient similarity to fractals and chaos to be relevant.
We have ordered a second batch of the Art Matrix Zoom cassettes on 5 December, and will have a small stock probably in early spring if anyone else is interested in ordering one. Art Matrix despatched them by surface mail (to keep prices down) on 15 December, and it takes one to three months. If we do as well with the duty as last time, applicants should be well satisfied with the price. If you think you might be interested please let me know, and I'll advise the price when they have arrived.
As editorial challenges for the following volume, how about:- A program to produce moving fractal images, of the style of the abstract images seen in the hyperspace journey in the film 2001 and repeated in many others? - A program to produce simple fractal music from BEEP statements. - Short reviews of music hardware add-ons for various computers with short programs of fractal music. -A program to produce moving fractal "tunnel images" as suggested by Near Death Experiences. I have an idea for a computer game based on NDEs and plan to issue it as "Adware" (ie a free program promoting my publications Fractal Report and Longevity Report), if I can find the time or help to develop it.