(From http://www.povray.org/documentation/view/3.6.1/10/)

The version history as it was included in PV-Ray 0.5 BETA. Notice the 
name changes...

Persistence of Vision Raytracer Version History
-------------------------------------------------

  PV-Ray was originally DKBTrace Ver. 2.12 written by David Buck. He
donated the rights to his source code so the PV-Team could enhance
this raytracer as a group project similar to Fractint. The source
code for PV-Ray will always be freely distributable subject to the
restrictions in the header files. Thanks David, for your generous
gift!
	
Version 0.02 BETA Release 7/29/91 (as STAR-Light)
----------------------------------
  First version is still basically DKBTrace 2.12 with a few new
  features.

  - Materials mapping added by Drew Wells.(see matmap.dat)
  - ONION & LEOPARD textures added by Scott Taylor.
  - Time to trace display added by Bill Pulver.
  - Grayscale display (+g) for IBM-PC's added by Scott Taylor.
  - Small wood texture bug fixed to create true cylinders.
  - Verbose now displays more info including file being traced.
  - Option +vO added to enable old-style terse verbose.
  - Texture.c broken into smaller modules.
  - PAINTED1, 2, & 3 added for developers.
  - BUMPY1, 2, & 3 added for developers.

PvRay Version 0.5 BETA Release 9/07/91
----------------------------------
  Many more changes this time around, including...

- Many enhancements from Alexander Enzmann
    - Bezier bicubic subpatches
    - Polynomial surfaces
    - New mapping types (sphere, etc.)
    - Sturmian sequences
    - Clipping shapes
    - (have I forgotten anything??)
- Lots of hard work and enhancements by Aaron Collins
- Height fields by Doug Muir
- Bump Mapping by Doug Muir and Drew Wells
- Interpolation by Girish T. Hagan adapted for mapping by Drew Wells
- # and ; are now ignored.
- case_sensitive keywords and commandline option added by Drew Wells
   > case_sensitive_yes -- All words checked for exact case.
                              Keywords must be in upper case.
                              (*Old DKB Style*)
   > case_sensitive_no  -- Case is ignored for all words.
   > case_sensitive_opt -- DEFAULT - All words checked for exact
                              case except keywords. Keywords will be
                              accepted in upper and/or lower case.
   > command line -- /ty = yes, /tn = no, /to = opt
- cnvdat.c to convert old dat files included with pvsrc.
- C++ style commenting - // ignore to end of line.
   and /* ignore between braces */ nesting not allowed.
- New default style verbose trace info (+v1)
- Old-new style verbose (+v0)
- Verbose trace info outputs to stderr so that stats can be
   redirected to file.
- New stats display outputs to stdout for better redirection.
- New lighting routines by David Buck.
- The declared colors Red, Green, and Blue in colors.dat are now
   CRed, CBlue, CGreen.
- The declared quadric Sphere in shapes.dat is now QSphere.
- Textures.dat has been cleaned up and commented.

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Happy birthday POV-ray!
1991 was still the good old CompuServe days, before internet.

Cheers
Ton.

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> Version 0.02 BETA Release 7/29/91 (as STAR-Light)

 Things that happen in 1991:
    Hubble Telescope Launched,
    Airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel,
    Failed Kremlin Coup,
    Rajiv Ghandi Killed,
    Cambodia Civil War Ends,
    Free Elections in Taiwan,
    Eritrea Independent,
    U.S. Announces Massive Nuclear Cutback,
  and I was 36 years old.

 Happy Birthday!

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Happy birthday POV-Ray! Here's to many decades more for this awesome ray tracer
:)

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That makes me feel old  :-)

I as 29 years old when we converted DKBTrace into POV-Ray.  I'd already 
been working on DKBTrace for about 6 years before then starting when I 
was around 23.  It's been a fun ride.

David K. Buck


On 2021-07-29 9:26 p.m., Chris Cason wrote:
> (From http://www.povray.org/documentation/view/3.6.1/10/)
> 
> The version history as it was included in PV-Ray 0.5 BETA. Notice the 
> name changes...
>

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Hi,

David Buck writes:

> 

dy 
> been working on DKBTrace for about 6 years before then starting when I 


> 
> David K. Buck
> 
> 
> Chris Cason wrote:
>> (From http://www.povray.org/documentation/view/3.6.1/10/)
>>
>> The version history as it was included in PV-Ray 0.5 BETA. Notice the 

>> name changes...

The software I wrote - Eureka 2.12 - is 34 years old in 2021, and
is named because of the version "2.12" of DKBTrace. Also Archimedes
died in 212 BC. I began to use POV-Ray in 1994, under SunOS. And I
ported some releases, when it was written in plain C language. What
you've done is really great. I'm so thankful to all this work :-)

Best regards,

-- 

Author of Eureka 2.12 (2D Graph Describer, 3D Modeller)
http://eureka.atari.org/

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