From: johnsd2@jec330.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: Mac multitasking?
Reply-To: johnsd2@jec330.its.rpi.edu.its1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 00:20:42 GMT

In article 24261@athena.mit.edu, zmonster@athena.mit.edu (Eric M Hermanson) writes:
>In article <m7h2!gd@rpi.edu> johnsd2@jec326.its.rpi.edu.its1 writes:
>>In article 2243@athena.mit.edu, zmonster@athena.mit.edu (Eric M Hermanson) writes:
>>>I failed to mention another "concrete example" of the magic of object
>>>oriented technology in my last post.  
>>>
>>>NeXTstep 3.0 supports drag and drop color onto text objects.  Therefore,
>>>the color of text on the screen (an object) can be changed by simply
>>>dragging a color from the color panel and dropping it onto the text.
>>>NeXTstep 2.0 did not support this feature.  However, when you upgrade to
>>>3.0, the text object gets upgraded, and all programs that use text will
>>>support drag and drop color onto text.  All programs will take advantage
>>>of this feature by simply upgrading your OS. 
>>>
>>
>>That's annother nice feature, which works if (and only if) the
>>programs use the standard text object (or a derivative of it,
>>right?)
>>Same trick could be done (but has not been done) for the Mac, which
>>has a something vaguely similar (text-edit thingies can be handled
>>by the system, and it can add features to them)
>>
>>However, since Mac programs can't really extend the thing for their
>>own use, they basically dont use it for any serious text editing- it
>>has a size limit of 32k and just isn't very exciting. :/ So in Real Life
>>(tm), the Mac can't do this this trick consistently.
>
>Geez, Dan, GIVE IT UP!

Huh? We were having such a nice discussion, and now this?

Perhaps you thought everyone would just take your word for everything?

>  The result is that Mac cannot handle this type of
>thing.

That's right, but its not because of lack of object
orientation. That's what I was saying. You are trying to claim
a particular benefit as unique to object oriented systems which just
plain isn't unique to them. In this case you came up with one that
the Mac indeed could not match, so I showed how some other, hypothetical,
non-object-oriented system could match it.

See?

>  Mac uses a whole bunch of system extensions to upgrade things.  Pretty
>soon, you will have 30 megs of extensions on your hard drive, and you wont
>be able to keep track of anything!

That is a remarkably silly statement, totally unrelated to reality. You
must know this. Why do you then say it?

>  This is not the future of computing.

Imho, it is PART of the future of computing. Whether it works by

That's not that hard, now is it?

Think of it this way

>In my opinion, anyone who invests in a Macintosh at this juncture is making
>a big mistake, given the move towards object orientation.  NeXT offers this
>technlogy now.  Taligent HOPES to offer it over a year from now.  

Macs offer you solutions, now. To a lot of problems. NeXT may do so one
day, if they ever get accepted.

But NeXT offer you a very nifty, internally clean os. It is just not enough,
tho.

>Does the fact that you are with Sun Microsystems have anything to do with
>your opinions?  Is Sun feeling the heat over there, just a little bit Dan?

I am not with Sun Microsystems.

I am a student an Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, as you can tell easily
enough from my address. My newsreader like to put the sun line in my
posts anyway. Pretty silly.

>>
>>>In article <-ch2rl_@rpi.edu> johnsd2@lib104.its.rpi.edu.its1 writes:
>>>>>Eric Hermanson Writes:
>>>>>Draw a cirle on your Mac screen.  Then draw a tangent to that circle, as best
>>>>>you can, without zooming in.  Do the same thing on a NeXT (built in display 
>>>>>postcript).  You will find that the tangent is correct when printet out on
>>>>>the NeXT 100% of the time.  On the Mac, the tangent is off.
>>>>
>>>>Really? How does the NeXT do that? How does it knwo I meant 'make this tangent'
>>>>and not 'make this almost, but not quite tangent'? Does it assume that
>>>>if anything is drawn near-tangent to a circle, it should make it all-the-way
>>>>tangent?
>>>>
>>>>Just exactly what does Display Postscript do here?
>>>>
>>>
>>>Postcript code is sent to the screen AND to the printer.  If the tangent
>>>touches the circle on the screen , it will absolutely touch the circle
>>>when printed out.
>>>
>>
>>Ah, I see!
>>
>>What if it is not-touching by 1/2 a (Screen) pixel?
>>
>>That is the sort of thing that will trip a Mac up in my experience.
>>(then again, I basically never use postscript, so perhaps the laserwriter
>>			- Dan Johnson
>
>Well you ARE persistent, I will give you that.

What did you expect?

That I would just buy everything you toss at me without explaination?
Ask anyone; Im much more obnoxious than that! :)

But trust me, its not so bad. When I do this to OS/2heads or Amigaheads
I usually wind up (after a string of questions and answers) impressed
with some aspect of their respective machines or other.

>  It is pretty simple.  With
>postcript, if something on the screen (a tangent say) touches something else
>on the screen (a circle say) then they will absollutely touch when printed
>out.

The problems is telling the system what is touching, no more. If you
give quickdraw exact info on this, it will draw correctly at high
resolutions too.

But it is easy to be inexact about it when you are using a mouse.

>  The screen resolution is LOWER than the printer's resolution.  The 
>printer merely adds more "pixels" to the picture, it does not alter the
>picture.

Umm, adding more pixels does change the picture. Adds more detail in this
case. Perhaps enought detail to see a gap between the lines. Perhaps
someone else can clue me on on the detail I was questioning. Anybody:
Is there some nasty bug in the LaserWriter driver which makes lines draw
in the wrong place or something like that?

>  Therefore, if your images touch on the screen, they will touch
>on the printout, looking smoother on the printed page.

Like I said, what about the case where the lines are separated by 1/2
a pixel- something small enough to get lost at low screen resolutions.
This happens on the Mac, as you know. When you zoom in (or print) you can
see it.

>  NeXT is the only
>system available that supports display postcript.

I know.

>  The SAME code is sent
>to the screen to image (postscript) that is sent to the printer.

I know this too.

>  Since
>the computer images the graphic using the CPU before it is sent to the screen
>or the printer, the NeXT laser printer needs to internal CPU.  This makes
>NeXT laser printers very inexpensive.  Last time I checked, they were
>$1100 brand new with an educational discount.

Ya know, that's just like a StyleWriter or LaserWriter somethingorother
I forget what. Except they use Quickdraw.

With teh same results- cheap printers. Also accurate printouts, for that
matter. (sometimes too accurate imho. If I use a pattern in a drawing I often
want to have it to come out very fine, rather than at screen resultion. But
it insists on wysiwigness. Bleah)
---
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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