Interactive Mandelbrot Visualizer
Controls
- Z - Zoom out
- X - Zoom in
- S - Show/hide debug info
- F6 - Enable/Disable CRT emulator (TIC-80 built-in)
I read an article from the August 1985 issue of Scientific American and then made my own Mandelbrot visualizer because I realized I'd never done that before. I programmed it in the TIC-80 because a.) it's my favorite fantasy console, b.) it makes visualizing easy, and c.) it has that cool retro feel that is perfect for 1986's "Fashionable Demo Program of the Year".
This was a fun project, and figuring it out helped me to actually understand complex numbers. I highly recommend the 1985 article, though I don't have a way to link directly to it here. However, if you look around, I'm sure you can find it.
You can play in browser, but honestly it's pretty dog slow. Part of the retro charm, right? I exported a few versions to download and run natively, which is much faster. I am also making the .tic file available if you already have the TIC-80 installed.
Some of my screenshots show the TIC-80's built-in CRT filter, which you can enable/disable with F6.
Download
Install instructions
To run the .tic file, you will need the TIC-80 tiny computer. It is available for pretty much any platform.
The native executables should execute... natively.
Development log
- 1.0 Release: Now with dynamic coloring!4 days ago
Comments
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Cool. The detail gets lost after few iterations but still fun. I've learned about Mandelbrot's pictures when reading about Chaos by Gleick, fascinating stuff!
Thanks! Yeah, it loses detail because my color thresholds are static. A dynamic threshold would be better, and actually I might have figured out an easy way to do that.
That looks like a cool book. I'll have to give it a try. My only introduction to Chaos has been Ian Malcolm's character in the Jurassic Park books (and I guess the movie), so I'm sure I have much to learn!