From: johnsd2@jec316.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Macintosh bigots
Date: 19 Nov 92 04:08:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: rpi.xly150p
Reply-To: johnsd2@jec316.its.rpi.edu.its1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.

In article 722125075@gmd.de, strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:
>In <s0x191c@rpi.edu> johnsd2@jec326.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:
>
[deletia- lots of >s]
>
>>Hmm, thats 2 votes for 8 bit and 1 for 24 bit now, I think. :)
>
>Most of these cards have 1MByte video memory, so for 1024x768
>its 8 bit deep, probably. For smaller resolution, it may be
>more.

Right. Same for the Mac. Gotta question now tho- how does
a Windows card/driver/etc know what the "right" resolution is?
(after all, you wouldn't want 640x480 on a 21 inch monitor most of the
time, no?)

[deletia- floppy drives]
>>"tweaked"? What is a "tweaked" format?
>
>There are people who like to put 10 instead of 9 or
>20 instead of 18 sectors on their floppies. This works
>because the original floppy format specs made worst
>case assumptions about the speed variation of floppy
>drives, which arent't true, anymore. MSDOS supports
>this quite well - with a correct format descriptor
>on the first sector, it can read almost everything.
>
>A tweaked format is created by making the gaps between
>sectors a bit smaller, adding one sector per track
>and writing an adjusted descriptor into the first
>sector of track 0. There are various PD and shareware
>programs which do that. I know about similar programs
>for the Atari ST. Doesn't the Mac have similar programs?

Not that I know of. Should be possible to do tho, as the Mac
floppy drives are pretty flexible in things like speed. (have
to be to read the 800k format)

[deletia- warantee and floppies]
>>> And all but one have a
>>>single floppy disk drive for both 3-1/2 and 5-1/4" disks.
>
>>How did they manage THAT? That sounds, well, geometrically challenging! :)
>
>It is. They put two drives into one, half height 5-1/4" case, operating
>from the same power and interface connectors. From an installation
>point of view, it's identical to a standard 5-1/2" drive. 
>Electrically and logically, its works as if there where two 
>different drives installed.

Oh, I see. I thought you had just one slot in the case sort
of thing. :)

>These drives where built because there was a demand: many PC
>cases have space for three half-height 5-1/4" drives, usually
>occupied by two floppies and one disk drive. By sqeezing both
>floppies into the space of one bay, you get the space for
>a second HD.

Pretty spiffy. (too bad you need to mess with that sort
of thing, but that's a neat solution to the problem)

[deletia- resources]
>>Im still a bit surprised the Mac does not support shared resource forks.
>>They would make sharing files much easier! Surely Windows could do this
>>right.
>
>??? I'm a bit lost. Please explain.

Why should it not be possible to share resource forks? The Mac doesn't do
it because each computer gets a copy of the resource map, adn if one changes
it and the other doesn't but both try to right the file gets
corrupted. They'd need some way to synchronize maps. But it would
be an easier way to manage shared files- you doint lock byte ranges. Its
a question of whose looking at what resouces.

[deletia- resedit]
>>
>>>Modifying resources can be done using the standard file system
>>>interface. Just read that part of a program file, which contains
>>>the resources and interpret it yourself.
>
>>But you need to interpret the format..
>
>True. Just like a compiler has to do it.

Doesn't the linker do that?

>>>On the macintosh, a single implementation concept (resources)
>>>is used for three different purposes: to contain the programs
>>>code, to contain the user interface part (i.e. dialog templates),
>>>and for program parametrization. 
>
>>Its used for a lot more than that. Virtually anything you
>>want can be stored there. Its very handy. Things like
>>control definitions, color tables, all the strings in your
>>program (officialy, you are supposed to do that), any internal
>>data you want to keep there.
>
>There is a string table in the collection of the standard
>Windows resource components, too, and its use is recommended,
>likewise. It's of course part of the user interface.

Hmm? All strings are in the ui? Anyway, the point was just that
you can (and do) put all sorts of rediculous things in there,
just cuz it easier.

>>>Windows does it differently. It uses a similar concept for
>>>user interface components, but has other mechanisms for 
>>>organizing code and for program parametrization.
>
>>Just what do you mean by program parametrization? I do not think
>>you are meant to do this with resources alone on the Mac..
>
>I'm thinking of things which are remembered from program 
>invocation to program invocation, but aren't fixed at
>compilation time. The font name and size used in an 
>editor by default, for example. 

That shouldn't be fixed, but changable. I should hope.

---
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy