--- /dev/null
+
+The Gnuplot Plotting Utility
+****************************
+
+Gnuplot is a command-line driven interactive function plotting utility
+for UNIX, MSDOS, VMS, and many other platforms. The software is copyrighted
+but freely distributed (i.e., you don't have to pay for it). It was
+originally intended as graphical program which would allow scientists
+and students to visualize mathematical functions and data. Gnuplot
+supports many different types of terminals, plotters, and printers
+(including many color devices, and pseudo-devices like LaTeX) and is
+easily extensible to include new devices. [ The "GNU" in gnuplot is
+NOT related to the Free Software Foundation, the naming is just a
+coincidence (and a long story; see the gnuplot FAQ for details). Thus
+gnuplot is not covered by the GNU copyleft, but rather by its own
+copyright statement, included in all source code files.]
+
+Gnuplot handles both curves (2 dimensions) and surfaces (3
+dimensions). Surfaces can be plotted as a mesh fitting the specified
+function, floating in the 3-d coordinate space, or as a contour plot
+on the x-y plane. For 2-d plots, there are also many plot styles,
+including lines, points, lines with points, error bars, impulses and
+(optionally filled) boxes. Graphs may be labeled with arbitrary
+labels and arrows, axis labels, a title, date and time, and a key.
+The interface includes command-line editing and history on most
+platforms.
+
+The new gnuplot user should begin by reading the general information
+available by typing `help` after running gnuplot. Then read about the
+`plot` command (type `help plot`). The manual for gnuplot (which is a
+nicely formatted version of the on-line help information) can be
+printed either with TeX, troff or nroff. Look at the docs/Makefile
+for the appropriate option.
+
+ The gnuplot source code and executables may be copied and/or modified
+freely as long as the copyright messages are left intact.
+
+Copyright and Porting
+=====================
+
+ See the Copyright file for copyright conditions.
+
+ See the ChangeLog and docs/old/History.old file for changes to gnuplot.
+
+ Build instructions are in the INSTALL file. Some additional
+informations needed to port gnuplot to new platforms not covered by
+GNU autoconf can be found in the PORTING file.
+
+ The code for gnuplot was written with portability in mind; however, the
+new features incorporated from v3.7 on were developed with ANSI-C compliant
+compilers, and it was deemed expedient to restrict the development effort
+to that environment, with the consequence that systems that could build
+previous gnuplot releases may require some source modifications. gnuplot
+has been tested on the following systems (incomplete), but be aware that
+this list is not necessarily up to date with regard to the current version
+of gnuplot:
+
+ o Sun3, sun4c, sun4m, sun4u (SunOS 4.03, SunOS 4.1.x, Solaris 2.5.1/2.6/2.7)
+ o uVAX 3100 (VMS 5.4, 5.5, 6.0, 6.1)
+ o VAX 6410 (VMS 5.2)
+ o DECStation 5000/200PXG (ULTRIX V4.1)
+ o DEC AXP 3400 (VMS/OpenVMS 1.5, 6.2)
+ o DEC AXP 600, A1000A, 3000 (DEC Unix 3.2 4.0, Windows NT 4.0 MSVC++ 4.0)
+ o IBM PC and compatibles (MS-DOS 3.3/5.0 32-bit DJGPP,
+ OS/2 2.x, Linux 2.x SVGA X11, Windows 9x, ME, Windows NT, 2K, XP)
+ o IBM AIX 3.x and 4.x
+ o CBM Amiga (AmigaOS 1.3, 2.x and 3.x, SAS/C 6.2 and better, Aztec C
+ beta 5.2a, gcc; Linux 2.x, NetBSD-1.3.x)
+ o IRIS 4D/70G and 4D/25G with MIPS C
+ o NeXT with gnu C 1.34
+ o AT&T 3B1 (version 3.51m with cc and gcc 1.39)
+ o Apollo's (DomainOS SR10.3 BSD4.3 with C compiler 68K Rev 6.7(316))
+ o HP 300 (m68k) and HP 700 (PA-RISC) (HP-UX 9.x 10.x)
+ o SGI Challenge and O2 (Irix 6.2, 6.3)
+
+ gnuplot has not been tested on Pyramid 90x. You can expect that gnuplot
+will compile more or less out of the box on any system which has a newer
+(2.x) version of the GNU C compiler gcc, or is compliant with current
+POSIX/Unix standards.
+
+
+Help and Bug Reports
+********************
+
+ Your primary place to go searching for help with gnuplot should
+be the project's webpage. At the time of this writing, that's
+
+ http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net
+
+ It has links to a lot of material, including the project's development
+page, also at SourceForge:
+
+ http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuplot/
+
+ Note that since gnuplot has nothing to do with the GNU project, please
+don't ask them for help or information about gnuplot; also, please
+don't ask us about GNU stuff.
+
+ Please note that all bug reports should include the machine you are
+using, the operating system and it's version, plotting devices, and
+the version of gnuplot that you are running. If you could add such
+information to any messages on the Usenet newsgroup or the other
+mailing lists and trackers, that'd be nice, too.
+
+
+Usenet
+======
+
+ Additional help can be obtained from the USENET newsgroup
+
+ comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot.
+
+ This newsgroup is the first place to ask for routine help. It used to be
+gatewayed bi-directionally to the info-gnuplot mailing list, but that
+had to be stopped when we moved the mailing lists off Dartmouth.
+
+
+Mailing Lists
+=============
+
+ As of gnuplot-4.0, the gnuplot mailing lists have moved away from
+their old home at Dartmouth College (thanks, guys!) to the project's
+general new development site provided by SourceForge.net. To
+subscribe to these new mailing lists, use the Web Interface provided
+by SourceForge.net:
+
+ http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=2055
+
+ The main lists you may be interested in are "gnuplot-info" and
+"gnuplot-bugs". "gnuplot-info" is for general discussion and
+questions about how to use the program. But as noted above,
+using the Usenet newsgroup for this kind of communication is
+almost certainly better both for you and for us.
+
+ "gnuplot-bugs" is NOT an appropriate place to ask questions on how to
+solve a gnuplot problem or even to report a bug that you haven't
+investigated personally. It is far more likely you'll get the help
+you need for this kind of problem from comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot
+or the gnuplot-info mailing list.
+
+ Using "gnuplot-bugs" is also slightly disfavoured, because it makes it
+hard for us to keep track what bugs are currently under investigation,
+and hard for you to check if maybe the bug you've found has already
+been reported by somebody else before. We would thus like to ask to
+you please use the "Bug Tracker" system that is part of gnuplot's
+development web site at SourceForge.net instead of this mailing list.
+
+ If you found a fix already, pleast post it in "diff -c" or "diff -u"
+format done against the most current official version of gnuplot or
+the latest alpha or beta release of the next version. All major
+modifications should include documentation and, if new features were
+added, a demo file. Finally, it is much easier to integrate smaller
+stepwise modifications rather than one gigantic diff file which
+represented months of changes.
+
+ There are separate tracking systems for Feature Requests and proposed
+patches that implement new features, also hosted at SourceForge.
+
+ Discussions about plans for new features or other significant changes
+should be announced and discussed on the developers' mailing list,
+gnuplot-beta, which is also hosted by SourceForge.net.
+
+
+Where to get updates to gnuplot
+===============================
+
+ Congratulations on getting this version of gnuplot! Unfortunately, it
+may not be the most recent version ("you never know where this version
+has been!"). You can be sure that it IS the most recent version by
+checking one of the official distribution sites, guaranteed to be kept
+up to date (of course, if you got this file from one of those sites,
+you don't need to check!).
+
+ To hear automatically about future releases (and other gnuplot news),
+read the newsgroup; see above.
+
+Distribution sites
+******************
+
+ In general, gnuplot 4.0 is available as the file gnuplot-4.0.0.tar.gz.
+Because of the numerous changes since version 3.7, no patch files will
+be available to bring 3.7 to 4.0. It will be made available at web
+and ftp sites listed below, along with DOS (32-bit, 386 or higher)
+Windows (32-bit, i.e. the 9x and NT families) and OS/2 2.0
+executables. Amiga binaries will be made available on Aminet.
+Macintosh binaries are planned to appear on the official gnuplot sites
+at a later time.
+
+ Also, some sites will have a special documentation tarball which
+contains PostScript and other versions of the manuals and tutorials
+for printout or installation in your system.
+
+Please obtain gnuplot from the site nearest to you.
+
+NORTH AMERICA:
+
+ Anonymous ftp to ftp.gnuplot.vt.edu:
+ ftp://ftp.gnuplot.vt.edu/pub/gnuplot/gnuplot-4.0.0.tar.gz
+ ftp://ftp.gnuplot.info/pub/gnuplot/gnuplot-4.0.0.tar.gz
+
+ Alternatively, you can use your web browser to get gnuplot
+ from the gnuplot web pages at
+ http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuplot/files
+
+ Anonymous ftp to ftp.dartmouth.edu. Please try the
+ other sites first!
+ ftp://ftp.dartmouth.edu/pub/gnuplot/gnuplot-4.0.0.tar.gz
+
+AUSTRALIA:
+
+ From the AARNet Mirror Project:
+ ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/gnuplot/
+ http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/gnuplot/
+
+ Anonymous ftp to ftp.cc.monash.edu.au:
+ ftp://ftp.cc.monash.edu.au/pub/gnuplot/gnuplot-4.0.0.tar.gz
+
+
+EUROPE:
+
+ Anonymous ftp to ftp.irisa.fr:
+ ftp://ftp.irisa.fr/pub/gnuplot/gnuplot-4.0.0.tar.gz
+
+ Anonymous ftp to ftp.ucc.ie:
+ ftp://ftp.ucc.ie/pub/gnuplot/gnuplot-4.0.0.tar.gz
+
+OTHER:
+
+ The CTAN mirror network has gnuplot in its "graphics" area
+ http://www.ctan.org/
+
+ Source and binary distributions for the Amiga are on Aminet in
+ http://ftp.wustl.edu/~aminet/gfx/misc/ and its mirrors.
+
+----
+
+ -Thomas Williams-
+ -Alex Woo-
+ -David Denholm-
+ -Lars Hecking-
projects / gnuplot / blobdiff