The old program used a background picture, while the new one builds a much bigger tank out of 3D objects. That old background picture was 1024x768 - very high-res for the world of 640x480 monitors that were the norm 10 years ago. A few months later, wide-screen monitors began showing up, so I added a 256-pixel patch, bringing the size of the background picture to 1280x1024. I never intended for the widescreen version to be used on narrow monitors. The Anamorphic settings were put in so that the user could adjust the image to make up for differences in monitor frequencies, so that the image covered the whole screen WITHOUT any black areas. I never intended for people to use it for letterboxing the widescreen version onto a narrow monitor. For those who are afraid of burn-in, leaving black areas of the screen would be the quickest way to it.

I know the perfect compromise here. There's a very simple (though not free) solution to how Harlan is going to be able to see all fish simultaneously and yet not have to suffer the seasick-inducing panning: Buy a second (widescreen) monitor.

Jim,
A typical monitor ten years ago was 1024x768 - VGA was the norm before Win95, i.e. 15 years ago.
Widescreen monitors on the other hand became available in 2003 or so.

I should have clarified what I said a little more - 3D apps were almost always 640x480 (or 320x240). Anything higher would usually result in abysmal frame rates. By making mine 1024x768 I figured I'd have the resolution edge for years to come.

That's OK. Bill Gates thought 640K memory would be more than anyone would ever need.

Hello Jim, I'm brand new at this aspect ( though I've been using MA for years -it's terrific). I'm not quite sure how to make comments & suggestions, but just incase this is getting to the right place, I have noticed a small cave over on the left side and I think it would be great to see a small octopus, or an elec. eel emerge from time to time, or maybe it could be user's choice as to what emerges and what it does.

I would expect a Moray Eel first.

Hi, mrcomngo - Welcome to the Forum.

It looks like Morgan just answered your question.

Remember this clue! At this moment.. it looks like the eel will be the first to call the cave home:D

Jim said years ago that he would try to get me a Zebra Moray in there for my years of service here. I'm hoping that he can. :)

I would dearly love to see this in that cave!!!

Zebra Moray Feeding

To me the best part of the entire aquarium is next! What I really want from the aquarium isn't neccecarily the most spectacular fish but realistic ones. I'd rather have just a yellow tang and a powder blue tang looking like they actually live inside the monitor than say 250 different species available, but swimming around like dumb robots. Heck, I'd settle for a realistic herring as long as it's realistic enough.

Actually, he never said that.

Mike,
Don't you think he'd want a smaller shrimp?

Calle,

That's not the one I had of course, mine was larger before I finally lost him, but actually that's exactly the way I fed mine. Other than I fed mine by hand.

But basically eels don't eat every day. They can go days between feedings, so I figured I wanted mine to eat fresh, not something frozen or freeze dried from a can or jar, so I went to the local Kroger's at the time and bought a few fresh shrimp once a week ( when he was little I got small shrimp and later he ate jumbo tiger shrimp ) and Harvey was happy. :)

I know. But some urban legends deserve to live on.

Not sure if this is the right topic, but I think a Marine Aquarium Blog updated by Jim would be a great idea, making it easy to keep up to date with developments and behind the scenes news, particularly via RSS subscription.

These are great and friendly forums and I wouldn't want to detract from what they are brilliant at (allowing people to ask questions and get support), but Jim's gems (!) and caveats are sometimes hidden away amongst and inside the very many topics here.

Anyway, thanks again for all the hard work!

Well, that's sort of what I've always done with the News section of my website: http://www.fish-byte.com/news2.htm

That's brilliant, just the ticket!

If you imported your updates into something like a Wordpress blog we could subscribe via RSS and see when you've posted an updated so that we don't miss it!

I reckon you could have a great Marine Aquarium blog, I can almost picture it with a nice header taken from the actual Aquarium, maybe a fish of the month content block or something!

Its all good fun!

RSS updates would be excellent. I use RSS all the time on my desktop, netbook also my PDA now!

Me too Neil, I use them on the iGoogle homepage to track updates on all my favourite sites.

A Marine Aquarium blog that we could all subscribe to??? :erm:

..... I thought that was what this forum has been for, - for the past ten years or so! :)

RSS is more about the news coming direct too you and not you going to the news!

The forums are more a community chat, conversation style thing but if a blog was set up with an RSS feed associated with it then all the little tips and insights into the development of MA3 can be maintained and not get lost within pages and pages of forum discussion.

Thanks

Regards,
Neil

The reason the forum is here is because Jim would rather spend his time programming and working on the aquarium than maintaining 14 other info sites about his work. Personally I would rather he spend the time working on the aquarium as well. ;)