PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Electronic Messages/USEnet Digests/USEnet Vol. 3/USEnet 3.065

Text File | 1988-04-08 | 25.9 KB | 759 lines | [TEXT/ttxt]

29-Sep-87 10:10:16-PDT,27241;000000000001
Date: Sat 5 Sep 87 10:41:11-GMT
From: Jeff Shulman <SHULMAN@SDR>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V3 #65

Usenet Mac Digest     Saturday, September 5, 1987    Volume 3 : Issue 65

Today's Topics:
     XL -> Imagewriter Problem *argh*
     When to call PrOpen?
     X2Fix and Long2Fix in LSC
     Re. Chinese on Mac
     Re: Excel memory limits
     Re: Games on a Mac II?
     Screen saver for a Mac II
     Frame grabbers
     Re: When to call PrOpen?
     Re: Which Is Better: DMCS or Concertware+?
     Re: X2Fix and Long2Fix in LSC
     Info on TeX (Text?-sp?)
     structural mechanical engineering software
     MIDI interfaces for Mac 2
     Hypercard lossage
     How to get a copy of MacAPL
     Re: Hypercard lossage
     Re: MIDI interfaces for Mac 2
     Re: Documentation on HyperCard External Commands
     Re: Learning Japanese
     Color MacPaint file format
     Calculating a new Menu on the spot.
     Re: SIMM RAM for the MacII
     Re: Color MacPaint file format

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Subject: XL -> Imagewriter Problem *argh*
Date: 31 Aug 87 15:14:00 GMT


Hi there.
     I'm having a real problem with one of the most archaic Mac systems
there is: an Imagewriter I, hooked to a Mac XL.

     Here's the problem: Once upon a time, I had this same system hooked
up, with a port to the campus LAN (Sytek for those who care) on the
modem port, and the Imagewriter on the printer port.  Everything went
just peachy.  Then I got access to a Mac Plus and said "Oh boy, now I
can use that instead!"  Alas, the Plus had only an AppleTalk port.  But
this didn't turn out to be a major problem - I kludged my way around it
by putting an AppleTalk XL Connector Cable (has your standard 25-pin
connector but only pins 2,3,19, and 20 actually exist, on one end; and
an AppleTalk Connector Box on the other) on the printer and a normal
8-pin AppleTalk Connector on the Plus.  This worked fine too.

     Then, to my chagrin, they took my Plus away, so I had to dust off
the XL and hook it back up again.  But NOOOO!!!  Now it won't print a
darn thing! No matter what I try.  I tried disconnecting AppleTalk; no
good, it wasn't connected anyway.  I tried using another Imagewriter;
that didn't help. I moved the Imagewriter to another (dumb) terminal
with a printer port; it worked fine there, so it's not the cable either.
 Everything is in its proper place in both the Control Panel and the
Chooser... printer port is selected, AppleTalk is still disconnected,
etc.  Here's a schematic of what the system looks like now:

       _______________
       |T~~~~~~~T    |
       ||       | -- |  plain ol' ribbon cable   T~T~~~~~~~~T~~~T
       ||_______|    |===========================| |        |   |D
       ---------------                           | ~~~~~~~~~~   |
      _____________L___                          |______________|
     / q w e r t y u i \
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     That's about it, besides the power cords and the LAN cable...
Stupefyingly simple yet I still don't know what's wrong with it.
Please help!
_____                                                                _____
The Mental Midget                                Member, ECIS - S division
  {ihnp4, seismo, cmcl2, pur-ee} !uiucdcs!uiucuxe!mccarthy
  [e-mail]
"A masterful retreat is itself a victory." N. V. Peale

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Brian H. Powell)
Subject: When to call PrOpen?
Date: 1 Sep 87 22:59:01 GMT
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas


     When's the best time to call PrOpen in an application?  For now, I
am doing it at startup time.  I wonder what happens if the user uses
Chooser to select a different printer driver.  It seems to go okay, but
I have my doubts. Alternatively, I could call PrOpen at the beginning,
and PrClose at the end, of both my Page Setup and Print procedures.
Will this work?  Any suggestions on the "right" way to do this?

Brian H. Powell
        UUCP:    {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!brian
        ARPA:    [e-mail]

   _Work_                     _Not Work_
  Department of Computer Sciences        P.O. Box 5899
  Taylor Hall 2.124                Austin, TX 78763-5899
  The University of Texas at Austin        [phone]
  Austin, TX 78712-1188
  [phone]


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Sho Kuwamoto)
Subject: X2Fix and Long2Fix in LSC
Date: 1 Sep 87 22:50:33 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology

I am in the process of converting a program to use the fixed point
routines.  My version of LSC seems to choke on both X2Fix() and
Long2Fix().  The first bug occured in a line like

    FixMul(X2Fix(5.0), X2Fix(5.0));

Which gave a "Pascal argument wrong size" error.  After putting in a
line of the form

    Fixed X2Fix();

I just get a link error that says X2Fix is undefined.  However, Fix2X
seems to be recognized.  What is going on?  I have an old version of the
manual, so it is not much help.  My guess is that the type double is not
defined as an extended, and the routine which converts doubles to Fixed
is called somthing else.  Something I should have checked when I was at
work. *sigh*.

                        -Sho


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Qing Zhong)
Subject: Re. Chinese on Mac
Date: 1 Sep 87 07:21:51 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University College, UNSW, ADFA, Canberra, Australia


Another Chinese word processing package is "The Kaihin Brushwriter".

For more details, try the following places:

Kaihin Technology Pte. Ltd.
35 Tannery Road
#03-01 Tannery Block
Ruby Industrial Complex
Singapore 1334
Tel: [phone]
Telex: RS 56509 KAITEC
Fax: [phone]

USA: Kaihin Enterprises Co. Ltd. Tel: [phone]
Canada: Kaihin Research Inc. Tel: [phone]

Please note that I have no connection with the company.

----
Mail: Qing, Zhong.  Dept. Computer Science, University College,
University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy,
Canberra. Campbell 2600. Australia

Phone:    [phone],    Telex:    ADFADM AA62030,    ACSNET:    "[e-mail]"

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Joel West)
Subject: Re: Excel memory limits
Date: 2 Sep 87 14:48:15 GMT
Organization: Palomar Software, Inc., Vista, CA

Microsoft does all their work using an interpretive or threaded code
compiler.  I thought I heard somewhere that this language system only
allows for 20-bit (1 Meg) addresses, because as everyone knows, personal
computers cannot address more than 640K of RAM.
--
    Joel West  (c/o UCSD)
    Palomar Software, Inc., P.O. Box 2635, Vista, CA  92083
    {ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww     [e-mail]
   or    ihnp4!crash!palomar!joel    [e-mail]


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Dave Platt)
Subject: Re: Games on a Mac II?
Date: 2 Sep 87 16:48:26 GMT
Organization: Teknowledge, Inc., Palo Alto CA

Funny you should ask.  I spent several hours last night installing about
5 megs of public-domain and shareware stuff from my diskette library
onto a co-worker's brand-new Mac II.  Naturally, we tried out the games.

Results to date: about half of the games I tried bomb on launch, bomb
when displaying the first game screen, or display sludge on the screen.
I imagine that games in this class are trying to manipulate the screen
buffer directly, and/or are trying to use the alternate screen buffer
(which just ain't there in a II).  Most of the rest run OK, but use only
the upper-left portion of the screen.  These games are apparently using
QuickDraw in the approved way, but have hard-coded window sizes/offsets.
 A very few (one!) uses the whole screen.

Here's the summary to date:

Game                Status

Ashes to Ashes            Partial screen
Asteroids            Bombs
Banzai                Gibberish
Bomber                Partial screen
Brickles, version 4        Partial screen, very fast
Crystal Raider            Bombs
Daleks                Bombs
Dungeons of Doom        Bombs
MacBugs!            Partial screen
MacHeads            Partial screen (I think)
Megaroids            Bombs
Missile Command            Full screen
Orion v1.0            Gibberish
Social Climber            Partial screen
Solitaire            Partial screen
Space Bubbles            Gibberish
Space War            Bombs
The Adventures of Snake        Bombs
ThinkAhead+            don't remember
Wheel                Partial screen
Wizard's Fire            Partial screen

My hat's off to those game designers who followed the rules re
Quickdraw, didn't hard-code timing loops, and still managed to produce
snappy-looking animation... their games run well on a II, even if they
don't use the whole screen.

[Most of the games on this list should be available via your local
 public-domain-software trading group, Mac-oriented bulletin board, or
 information-services network (GEnie, Compu$erve, Delphi, The Source)]


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Dave Platt)
Subject: Screen saver for a Mac II
Date: 2 Sep 87 17:04:50 GMT
Organization: Teknowledge, Inc., Palo Alto CA

While installing PD/shareware stuff on a friend's new Mac II last night
(see my previous posting for information about games that run on the II)
I tried most of my collection of screen-savers to see which, if any,
would work.  Most don't;  one does.

The Mac II in question has 1 meg of memory, the Apple video card (4-bit
pixels), and an Apple monochrome monitor;  the control panel was set in
the black-and-white, 16-shade setting.

AutoBlack        Didn't try; uses alternate screen buffer and
            almost certainly won't work.

Fade to Black        BOOM!

ScreenSave        Put up the menu, but the screen didn't blank
            after two minutes of disuse as I requested.
            May be disfunctional, or may be stepping on
            memory?

ZoomIdle        Blanks out (and runs string art in) a window
            in the upper-left corner of the Mac II screen.
            Guess how big the blanked window is!

New Idle        Works like a charm!  Blacks out entire screen,
            flashes a moving trash-can, and restores the
            screen properly when the mouse is clicked.
            [Requires that applications understand and
            correctly process the "Hey, your window has
            just been uncovered;  refresh it!" event].

I don't recall whether New Idle chews up CPU while the screen is being
blanked, or whether it moves the trashcan around via a VBL task of some
sort (as AutoBlack does).  If the latter, then it should be possible for
tasks such as spreadsheet recalculations, long downloads, and so forth
to run while the screen is being blacked out;  if the former, then New
Idle is useful only when the Mac is really not being used.

New Idle must be invoked manually from the apple menu whenever you wish
to blank the screen;  it does not automatically blank out the screen
after N minutes of screen inactivity.

HEY APPLE: How about building a screen-blanking capability into
MultiFinder, akin to the one in New Idle but which automatically blanks
the screen after several minutes of no-user-generated-events?


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Ken Thornton)
Subject: Frame grabbers
Date: 1 Sep 87 15:54:14 GMT
Organization: Boeing/UW Seattle

I'm trying to put together a low cost image processing system and am
looking at the Amiga, Mac, and IBM PC. I need a color frame grabber with
the following specs:

1. Can input RGB and NTSC video (a jack for each)
2. Can output the same
3. At least 512 x 512 x 9 (3 bits per primary) resolution
   [The machine must support a display with this capability, of
    course].
4. Does not need to be real time

I'm partial to MC68000 or 020 machines because I have designed  with
those CPUs, but it appears that the IBM PC wins hands down in terms of
product offerings.

Any comments?

Ken

--
     /\
  /\/  \/\
 / / /\/  \ Ken Thornton  {decvax,ihnp4}!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!ssc-bee!thornton
/ / /  \   \


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Jan Harrington)
Subject: Re: When to call PrOpen?
Date: 2 Sep 87 11:59:52 GMT
Organization: Scholastech, Inc., Waltham, Mass.

Generally, I've called PrOpen at the head of my print module and PrClose
at the end of the print module.  There's no need to open and close the
Print Manager for every page, just at the beginning and end of a print
job.  It takes only a bit of time and is probably safer than doing so at
the beginning and end of an entire application.

Jan Harrington, sysop
Scholastech Telecommunications
{seismo,ihnp4}!husc6!amcad!stech!sysop


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Alan Perry)
Subject: Re: Which Is Better: DMCS or Concertware+?
Date: 2 Sep 87 00:36:31 GMT
Organization: The Unix(tm) Connection, Dallas, Texas

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (H. Moskovitz)
writes:

> I have two questions:
>
>     1) Does it support MIDI (if so, how well)?
>
  I don't think the version I have does, but the newest version out (the
one with support for 8 voices) is going to....at least that is the story
I heard...


>     2) How well does it print out scores on the LW? Does it support
>        ADOBE's Sonata font (like DMCS)?
>
  I don't know if it would support the Sonata font or not....  Also, I
don't  know what it looks like on a LaserWriter since I don't have
access to one.

Sorry I couldn't have been of more help...

- Ghoti (that's pronounced "fish"
            GH as in lauGH
             O as in wOmen
        and TI as in moTIon)


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Alen Shapiro)
Subject: Re: X2Fix and Long2Fix in LSC
Date: 2 Sep 87 20:09:56 GMT
Organization: Cogensys, LaJolla, Calf.

 It would seem that despite the lack of any prototype for X2Fix() in any
 of my <.h> files (referenced in <#include catalog.h>) LSC does NOT
 want you to redefine X2Fix(). X2Fix() however does not complain if
 it is given the address of a variable (not a constant) - these Pascal
 type args are call by address i.e. var arg. I have no manual page to
 check this with (my docs are out of date - there is a 2.01 LSC sup. I'm
 waiting for from Think).

  so try
      FixMul(X2Fix(&a), X2Fix(&b));

--alen the Lisa slayer (its a long story)


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Don Chitwood)
Subject: Info on TeX (Text?-sp?)
Date: 2 Sep 87 19:32:24 GMT
Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or.


Does anyone have experience with a program called TeX or Text or some
other phonetic spelling?  The one I'm after was written by Barry Smith
and another fellow.  It is apparently very powerful.  I'm interested is
how  easy it is to use.  Does it require a knowledge of arcane function
keys, a la VI in unix?  Or is it Mac-ish and friendly?  Also, does it
have page layout capabilities such as Ready-Set-Go or Pagemaker?

Thanks for any responses!

Don Chitwood Tek Labs Tektronix, Inc.


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (R.BRANDI)
Subject: structural mechanical engineering software
Date: 3 Sep 87 00:30:06 GMT
Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ

I would like to find a structural/mechanical engineering program that
has at minimum the ability (for geometric and material properties) to
compute the area, centroid location, moments of inertia, radii of
gyration, shear center, shear area reduction factors and torsional
properties of thirty typical cross-sectional shapes. Anything more than
this requirement would be a bonus.  Any suggestions?

Ralph Brandi (actually for my dad, who's also named Ralph Brandi)

    ====      | Disclaimer: Just `cuz I work on the Death Star,
 ==OOO=====   | that doesn't mean I speak for Darth Vader...
=OOOOOOO====  | Ralph Brandi, {ihnp4,mhuxt}!homxb!mtuxo!lzfme!ralph
=OOOOOOO====  | Kopykat (k) 1987, R.A.Brandi
 ==OOO=====   | All Rights Reserved, All Jams Preserved,
    ====      | All Nasty Comments Soundly Deserved...


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (John Tangney)
Subject: MIDI interfaces for Mac 2
Date: 1 Sep 87 19:55:41 GMT
Organization: MultiMate International, East Hartford, CT


Does anyone in net.land know about MIDI interfaces for the Mac2?  As I
understand it, the Mac traditionally uses "modem" and "printer" ports to
talk to the interface.  Mac2 can handle a plug-in board.  Has anyone
actually announced a MIDI board for Mac2?  Or, alternately, will
traditional Mac interfaces work with the Mac2?

Any help would be appreciated.
johnt   (John Tangney)           ...seismo!scgvaxd!ashtate!mmintl!johnt
                                 ...ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmint!johnt
Ashton-Tate
52 Oakland Ave, East Hartford, CT 06108.  ph: [phone]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Bob Berger)
Subject: Hypercard lossage
Date: 1 Sep 87 05:44:25 GMT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI

Hypercard would be the ideal program for accessing various touch-tone
based information services. Unfortunately, the dial command ignores "*"
and "#", which many of these services use. Apparantly the programmer
never saw a need to dial non-digits. Sigh.


Robert Berger
[e-mail]


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Ed Wilkinson)
Subject: How to get a copy of MacAPL
Date: 31 Aug 87 22:48:34 GMT
Organization: Computer Centre, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

I was pleasently surprised by all the replies I received about MacAPL.
After a week's holiday, I can now do something about it. It seems that,
as it stands, I cannot distribute my port to non-licence holders. Thus,
if you want a copy, send a photocopy of your Licence (V6 or more recent)
plus $US 20 to:

    MacAPL
    Ed Wilkinson
    Computer Centre
    Massey University
    Palmerston North
    New Zealand

I shall return ASAP two disks, containing sources, a runnable(?)
version, and some notes and a couple of reports which may be of some
use. Please note that I have not touched it since last year. If you find
something which looks really silly, you're right! Priorities were to get
at least something going by a deadline - I think I achieved that, just!

I shall try to reply to those who emailed me, especially John Bruner who
did much of the early work. I shall also arrange for somebody to take
over MacAPL for further development. The main task will to be to weed
out the AT & T proprietary code so that it can be distributed to anyone
at all.

If anyone has any legal queries, please let me know. I don't want to do
anything which will cause problems for anyone! Thanks again for all the
replies and offers of help - I'll get in contact with as many of you as
possible as soon as possible.

    Ed Wilkinson (edward@vuwcomp)


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (David Fry)
Subject: Re: Hypercard lossage
Date: 3 Sep 87 20:18:37 GMT
Organization: Harvard Math Department

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bob Berger) writes:
>Hypercard would be the ideal program for accessing various touch-tone
>based information services. Unfortunately, the dial command ignores
>"*" and "#", which many of these services use. Apparantly the programmer
>never saw a need to dial non-digits. Sigh.
>
>
>Robert Berger
>[e-mail]


HyperCard knows how to dial non-numeric characters.  Open the message
box and type 'dial "#" with modem "ATDT"' and hear it  make the noise.
I assume your problem is the Phone Stack whose script purposefully
removes all non-numeric characters before doing the dialing.

Open the Phone stack and choose "Stack Info" (assuming you've set
yourself to "Scripting Level").  If you click on the "Script..." button
you can scroll through the routine that does the dialing.  You'll find
two instances of the string '"0123456789"'.  Replace each of these with
'"0123456789#*"' and you're in luck.

David Fry                [e-mail]
Department of Mathematics        [e-mail]
Harvard University            ...!harvard!huma1!fry
Cambridge, MA  02138

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (David Palmer)
Subject: Re: MIDI interfaces for Mac 2
Date: 3 Sep 87 20:45:38 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology

Apparently, a MIDI adaptor for the Macintosh just an opto-isolator to
prevent ground loops and a clock to run the serial port at the speed
required for MIDI.  These should work just fine on a Mac II.

If you want to make your own, there is a construction article in
MacTutor around the end of 1985.  It is also in "The Best Of Mactutor,
Vol. 1"

        David Palmer
        [e-mail]
        ...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer
    The opinions expressed are those of an 8000 year old Atlantuan
    priestess named Mrla, and not necessarily those of her channel.

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Jordan Mattson)
Subject: Re: Documentation on HyperCard External Commands
Date: 31 Aug 87 17:24:52 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, USA

Followup to Dan Winkler's posting on XCMDs & XFCNs

    The XCMD and XFCN disk will be available from APDA as part of the
HyperCard Technical Reference Package and is called the HyperCard
Toolkit.   It should be available from APDA by Friday of this week (Sept
4).


--


Jordan Mattson                UUCP:   ucbvax!mtxinu!apple!jordan
Apple Computer, Inc.            CSNET:     [e-mail]
Tools & Languages Product Management
20525 Mariani Avenue, MS 27S
Cupertino, CA 95014
408-973-4601
            "Joy is the serious business of heaven."
                    C.S. Lewis


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Jordan Mattson)
Subject: Re: Learning Japanese
Date: 31 Aug 87 17:34:03 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, USA

Followup to a question on the Kanji font on the Macintosh:

    The Kanji font used by KanjiTalk and the Japanese version of the
Macintosh System Software is a fairly decent font when displayed on the
Macintosh screen and when printed on the LaserWriter.
    Any application (including the localized Finder and System) can
display Kanji in menus, dialogs, etc.
    Hope that answers your questions.

--


Jordan Mattson                UUCP:   ucbvax!mtxinu!apple!jordan
Apple Computer, Inc.            CSNET:     [e-mail]
Tools & Languages Product Management
20525 Mariani Avenue, MS 27S
Cupertino, CA 95014
408-973-4601
            "Joy is the serious business of heaven."
                    C.S. Lewis


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (D. Ranson CNET)
Subject: Color MacPaint file format
Date: 3 Sep 87 07:20:51 GMT


Has anybody defined a file format for color bitmaps (for use in screen
dumps or color MacPaint look-alikes)? There is a rumor of a new color
MacPaint. Has anybody tested it and peeked into its files? Or maybe
HyperCard is the place to look at if it can paint in color (can it?).
   Daniel Ranson
   ...!seismo!mcvax!inria!{crcge1 or cnetlu}!ranson


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Larry Hutchinson)
Subject: Calculating a new Menu on the spot.
Date: 3 Sep 87 18:26:21 GMT
Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or.


What is the proper way to calculate and install a revised menu when the
user presses the mouse button in a specific menu title in the menu bar?

I have one menu that changes frequently and would prefer to update the
menu only when the user clicks the title in order to avoid setting and
checking flags at multiple places in my program.  I don't want to slow
down all the menus by recalculating every time the menu bar is hit
anywhere - just when the title of this menu is hit.

At first I thought that I would install a MBarHook routine (which is
called when the menu title is hilited and the menu rect is calculated)
and use the global TheMenu which is supposed to contain the current menu
id to determine which title was hit.

Experimentation (after the program was written) determined that TheMenu
is not set until after a menu item is chosen and thus is of no use in
this application (or any other?).  Besides, it wasn't clear that it was
proper to recalculate the menu rect at this point in time anyway.

I am currently thinking of scanning the menu list to determine which
title the mouse is in or perhaps writing a cusom menu definition proc.

Actually, it may be that avoiding a few flags is not worth this much
effort!


Larry Hutchinson, Tektronix, Inc. PO Box 500, MS 50-383, Beaverton, OR 97077
{ decvax,allegra }!tektronix!tekgvs!larryh

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Joel West)
Subject: Re: SIMM RAM for the MacII
Date: 4 Sep 87 14:53:36 GMT
Organization: Palomar Software, Inc., Vista, CA

A friend who'd unsuccessfully bought two third-party SIMM upgrades for
his II may have found the problem.  Turns out he didn't have the same
initial SIMM bank as everyone else -- i.e., it was from a different
manufacturer.  The local guru at Levco suggested that adding a second
bank of RAM, not from that manufacturer, would probably screw up the
timing -- particularly if the second bank of RAM became ready (on each
cycle) before the first.

Wish I had the manufacturer's names to offer more.  But this might
explain why some of these upgrades work for some, not all.
--
    Joel West  (c/o UCSD)
    Palomar Software, Inc., P.O. Box 2635, Vista, CA  92083
    {ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww     [e-mail]
   or    ihnp4!crash!palomar!joel    [e-mail]


------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Joel West)
Subject: Re: Color MacPaint file format
Date: 4 Sep 87 15:12:52 GMT
Organization: Palomar Software, Inc., Vista, CA

The color painting program that most people have seen is ATG Paint, from
Apple's Advanced Technology Group (yep, apple!lsr had a major hand in
it). It uses a radical new format: PICT.

Q: PICT?  You mean like "Save as PICT" in MacDraw?
A: Yep, that's the one.  However, the Color QuickDraw version is a newer
   format than the original, includes RGB colors, etc.

Q: Are there likely to be any other standard formats?
A: Not any time soon, if ever.

Q: Are there other formats?
A: Yes.  For example, PixelPaint has its own proprietary format.

Q: Will ATG Paint ever be commercial?
A: Not likely.

Q: What about a commercial color MacPaint?
A: Ask Claris, the Apple application spin-off.

> Or maybe HyperCard is the place
> to look at if it can paint in color (can it?).

Q: Does the current HyperCard support color?
A: No, and its current implementation would be too memory-intensive
   to work with color bitmaps if it did.
--
    Joel West  (c/o UCSD)
    Palomar Software, Inc., P.O. Box 2635, Vista, CA  92083
    {ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww     [e-mail]
   or    ihnp4!crash!palomar!joel    [e-mail]

------------------------------

End of Usenet Mac Digest
************************
-------
-------