Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!mms00786
From: mms00786@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Considering using Windows
Message-ID: <246400034@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 13 Nov 89 10:40:31 GMT
References: <3288@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Lines: 37
Nf-ID: #R:hydra.gatech.EDU:3288:uxa.cso.uiuc.edu:246400034:000:1703
Nf-From: uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!mms00786    Nov 12 12:17:00 1989


>  1) I read somewhere that Windows only supports 8 colors. Is this true?
>     If I have a VGA board that supports maybe 64 or 256 simultaneously
>     displayable colors is there any way to access these colors through
>     Windows? If not are there any workarounds? Is v3.0 going to support
>     more colors?

  Hope I can express an opinion. As far as I know, Windows is device indep-
  endent - I myself have a vga adapter that came with a driver for 16 colors.
  Seems to work fine. However, I have not tried to use 16 colors from within
  my program.

 
>  2) Is writing for Windows/286 quite different from Windows/386 or is
>     it just a matter of recompiling for a different target environment?

  Once again, from all the docs I have access to (SDK, Petzold), there is
  no difference whether you are programming for windows/386 or 286, as far
  as a typical *windows* program goes - they both offer non-premptive
  multitasking and full memory managment (of sorts, still limited to 640K)
  Your program for windows/286 should run as is on win/386.

>  3) What's the learning curve for Windows software development for
>     someone who knows MS C and Assembler well?

  Learning curve is very high if you include time it takes to earn the money
  to start learning! ( ~ $500 for the SDK, ~$120 for a secondary monitor and
  mono card for debugging). But, kidding aside, I myself picked it up this
  summer and didn't find it too difficult. However, Petzold's book, 
  Programming Windows, is a must, I think. While the SDK docs are fairly good,
  it would be hard to find a place to *start* using the SDK.

  Hope I didn't waste bandwidth (again!)

  Milan
  mms00786@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
.