From: johnsd2@lib102.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: Need to convince boss 486's are *not* w
Reply-To: johnsd2@lib102.its.rpi.edu.its1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 01:59:39 GMT

In article 1526@cubetech.com, andrew@cubetech.com (Andrew Loewenstern) writes:
>In article <1993Jan20.234117.17575@nmsu.edu> bgrubb@dante.nmsu.edu (GRUBB) writes:
>>howard@netcom.com (Howard Berkey) writes:
>>>Note also that the ci has 8 bit color.
>
>>WRONG! The IIci has 32-bit color even though people normally only use 8-bit
>>of it at a time. ALL Present Macs have 32-bit color even though most monitors
>>display either in 2-bit{black and white} or 8-bit mode.
>
>>>The NeXT has 16.  It's still much faster.
>
>>Of course the NeXT is managing 65536 color while the mac is handling
>>16777216 colors AND a 8-bit Alpha chanel that is partly accessable in 
>>8-bit mode {SuperPaint 3.0 uses it.} regardless of what the monitor shows.
>>This is 3 month old news from Mac & IBM info{Now on suxex as 
>>mac-ibm-compare.txt.}
>
>nonono....  he was talking about frame-buffer depth.  DPS is full
>32-bit as well.  But it goes much, much further than 32-bit QD.  First
>of all, NeXTSTEP has full alpha support (used for transparency) all
>the time in all apps at the system level.  This isn't true with
>QuickDraw.  SuperPaint has it's own way of using it, and I have never
>seen any other app use it (and I've been doing pre-press on
>Macintoshes for several years).  When I, for instance, drag an image
>around in PasteUp (a page-layout app), it becomes partially
>transparent so I can see behind it which aids tremendously in
>placement.  When I drag icons around, I can see around the irregular
>shapes, and through them in some cases where the artist has created
>semi-opaque or transparent sections.  I use alpha all the time in most
>of my apps, not just one or two image editing or drawing apps.  Plus,
>when I create an image with alpha in it in one app, every other app
>knows what to do with it.

Could someone explain why this is supposed to be really great?

I really don't get it.

Sounds like it provides a way to transport transparent images.
(something the Mac hasn't got 'cuz apple didn'ts see fit to
make CopyDeepMask record into picture! Yeesh. Cmon apple...)

>Bit depths are "lazy" and set on a per-window basis.  On my machine,
>which is a NeXTstation color, I have a 16-bit frame-buffer.  The DAC
>can only display 65536 colors simultaneously.  NeXT chops that up as 4
>bits each for red, green, blue, and alpha.  However, most windows
>start out as 2-bit with a 2-bit backing store (you don't have buffered
>windows with backing-stores in Macintosh either, BTW)

Yeah. not sure why its considered so great. I mean, its rather
memory expensive and the speed increase isn't that greate most of the
time. (when it is, you can implement a backing store on the Mac, but
this is not done that much)

An 040 computer should be able to refresh its windows fast without
such a thing.

.  When you add
>color, only then does the window get promoted to 16 or 32 bits.
>Thereby conserving memory until it is needed.

Only conserving memory you are wasting on a backing store. Youd use
less if you didn't have one at all.

>  So I can have 2-bit,
>8-bit, 12-bit, and 32-bit windows all happily coexisting using only as
>much memory as they need in my apps.

Well, a little more. :)

Real question: 8 bit? This greyscale, direct or indexed?

>  On the Mac, it's all or nothing.
>You are in one mode or the other (sure, there are some cheeze ball
>apps that switch the mode around when different apps become active,
>but it's not the same thing).

At least you CAN switch. As far as I can tell, there is NO way to make
a NeXT switch modes on the fly.

>  Additionally, the system object that
>most apps use for images (called NXImage), keeps multiple
>representations of the data around and chooses the appropriate one for
>whichever display it is going to.

Holy cheese bagels, what a waste of memory! AND think of the time it
takes to generate the extra images.

Imho, if its a backing store you need, why not just have one and
change depths as appropriate. (ya know, what GWorlds do)

>  So lets say you have some PS code.
>Before you can display it in a 2-bit window, you have to render it.

Why? Can't you just play it into the window, sorta like a DrawPicture()
call?

>So NXImage RIP's the PS code into a 2-bit buffer and flushes it to the
>window.  When you drag the window across your screen onto a display
>with a 32-bit frame-buffer (like a NeXTDimension), it will RIP the
>code to a 32-bit buffer and display that.

Hmm? Does this work for windows that change on the fly- with
controls and such?

>  So now you have 3
>representations of the same image - PS code, 2-bits, and 32-bits.  Now
>when you print, NXImage will pick the PS code to print with, as it's
>more appropriate than a bitmap for that display.

You mean.. print the window?? Surely you would rather print the document?

>Do you see what I'm getting at?  DPS and NeXTSTEP are much, much more
>advanced than QuickDraw and Macintosh.

They seem to me to be a bit more powerfull- paths and such, you know.
What you have cited doesn't sound like much.

>  Indeed, NeXTSTEP is much more
>advanced than Macintosh in just about every single aspect.

Hardly. Its a little better in some areas, a little worse in others.
There are some significant improvements, mostly in esoteric areas,
and some problems (mainly from Unix, from what I've seen)

>  That's why
>Apple is trying to copy NeXT with their Pink/Taligent stuff.

No, Apple is copying the same bunch you are more or less- Xerox.

NeXT still uses an application centered design, like the Mac. Taligent
will be document centered.

Now that is a big difference- for users.
---
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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