From: craig@ec.uwa.oz.au (Craig Richmond - division)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: System 7.1 what? when?
Date: 29 Sep 1992 01:40:22 GMT
Organization: The University of Westrn Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: decel.ecel.uwa.edu.au

$ennsnr@brandonu.ca (Neil Enns) writes:

>In article <1992Sep24.064109.12419@ausom.oz.au>, hdk@ausom.oz.au (Dieter Krebs) writes:
>> All this hype about system 7.1, but does anyone know when it
>> will be available in Australia?
>> 
>> And what  these so called improvements such as world script,
>> Quickdraw GX and this new printing manager?
>> 
>> What is Quickdraw GX, will it be a patch to the existing quickdraw?
>> Will it have speed improvements over the existing quickdraw or does
>> it simply introduce some fancy new features?
>> 
>> And what about  the new printing manager, will it  finally let
>> me print  document as a background task on my imagwritter II?
>> 
>> What about bug fixes?
>> 
>> People are throwing all sorts of new concepts about system
>> 7.1, but what do they actually mean and how will they benefit
>> the everyday homeuser from a short and long term perspective.
>> 
>> Any information would be appreciated.
>> 

>When System 7.1 comes out, it SHOULD be available via ftp at ftp.apple.com.
>This is true regardless of where you are calling from.

BZZZZZZ, Wrong Answer.  System 7.1 will NOT be available via ftp.  This was
even posted by a guy who works for Apple.  Also, I'm not sure that the
System software directory is one of the ones non-US ftpers are allowed to
download from (who has read the read me file lately?)

I am told that System 7.1 will be available on October 19th here in
Australia as well.  I have no indication as to how much it costs, but I do
know that you will have to pay for it, or pirate a copy (getting it from
your friend is no longer legal)

System 7.1 has nothing totally mind boggling wild for the average user.
World script just provides foreign font/script access but at the cost in
Disk Space.  Some of the double byte fonts are many megabytes in size as
truetype fonts.  Quickdraw GX provides new functionality such as colour
matching and the ability to play silly buggers with your truetype fonts and
map them onto strange spaed objects.  This provides you with a lot of the
functionality that Postscript gives you.  The new printer architecture is
faster (partly because fonts now live in a folder and not the system file)
and has built in support for colour printers which Apple will probably
announce sometime in the future.

One of the fun and games extensions you can buy is OCE (Open Collabroative
Environment (I think)) that gives applications a simple interface to
e-mail.  It comes with a directory system for finding peoples addresses and
a standard interface to it.  You can drag files from the desktop into your
application and drop them into the attach these files window so they get
sent from your mail.  This is done using the drag manager which will be
released to developers soonish we were told.  Another fun and games one was
Quicktime 1.5 which was capable of doing a picture twice the size at the
same speed.  Quaddra 700 with heaps of ram and a fast hard disk was doing
animation (from The Little Mermaid) at full frame rate in a window that was
about 240x200.  That may be wrong.  I can't remember what size it was
exatly but it looked excellent and was definintely bigger than your classic
Quicktime movie that you need a magnifying glass to watch.

Hope this has helped.

Craig
--
Craig Richmond.  Computer Officer -  Dept of Economics (morning) 380 3860
  University of Western Australia    Dept of Education (afternoon)
craig@ecel.uwa.edu.au                              Dvorak Keyboards RULE!
     "Only users are allowed to make messes on their computers"  I.M.VI
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc