Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!lll-winken!ames!zodiac!jtn From: jtn@zodiac.ADS.COM (John Nelson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: What do I want to see in the Apple of the 90's? Message-ID: <9986@zodiac.ADS.COM> Date: 8 Dec 89 18:36:07 GMT Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mountain View, CA 94043, (415) 960-7300 Lines: 132 This probably comes too late to do any good, but since Apple is revamping the Mac operating system I thought I'd put in my two cents. Please take it with a grain of salt since I may be ignorant of some capabilities already available. What does THIS user want to see in a new Macintosh operating system? o Rewrite in Pascal and make software calling sequence ANSII C complient. CtoPstr and PtoCstr is a boatload of nonesense. Of course this will break all kinds of code out there, but then Apple plans to continue support of OS 6 right? o Simplify calls to the toolbox. I hate having to call functions with a bazillion arguments. I also dislike sending in "mystery" parameters like "0L", -1 and so forth. So what if the ROMS and system get a little larger. System 7.0 will run only on 68030 boxes anyway. You have plenty of room to spread out. o Speed up the interface. I can't stand having to wait for all of those windows to redraw themselves. If necessary, install hardware blitter hardware to do a lot of the work for you. When the Mac was a small inexpensive box, then it was correct to do lots of stuff in software. Now that Mac CPUs cost upwards of $3,000-$4,000, Apple can afford a little specialized hardware. o Virtual memory and memory management. Apple IIs use the 68030 chip which also includes memory management and process protection/mode switching. USE that capability. Give us multitasking and virutal memory. o Update the interface. Let's face it... the Mac interface was inovative 5 years ago, but compared to Motif on X windows or the NeXT computer interface, its a dog. This is actually a very complex issue: The look and feel of Macintosh windows is very sparten. I would like to see an interfacethat looks more elegant even if it is no more functional. Consider the Motif interface in X Windows... very nice textured panels with 3-D buttons and shadowing. Beautiful. Now look at Mac windows and dialog boxes... a couple of lines and the samey old radio buttons and click buttons. Boring. To rid ourselves of this sameyness, there should be a tool on the Mac very similar to the NeXT computer's interface builder. Such a tool would let you prototype windows and dialog boxes but froma larger pallette of "panels" and textures. Various buttons and effects (shadowing, highlighting, blinking) should be available. Different types of window panes, controls and menuing paradigms should be available. This hypothetical tool would allow the user to prototype windows by draggin each item from a menu and simply placing them on the window. The tool might then generate a framework of code which the user can fill in later. It should also be possible for the user to create his/her own controls and plug them into the library of things attachable to a window or box. All of these items should be sharable by users without clobbering each other's applications too! o Stress a greater tie-in with colour. The Mac OS grew up in the days when the Mac was available only in B&W monochrome. There should be greater support in Resedit and the Finders for colour. The hardware is there... but the Finders just don't use it! o It should be possible to run an X Windows based MultiFinder with true multitasking. X Windows is there.... why ignore it! Integrate the thing right into the MultiFinder and polish up the interface (although it would probably run a little slow). MacX isn't a total solution. o Make the OS more Posix call-complient. Functions like FSGetFile are a good thing but there should also be ANSI conformant Unix "open" "read" "write" calls. The Unix OS interface is simplicity in itself. Don't ignore the tide of support for Unix and OS STANDARDS. The OS looks like it came out of a 128K machine from the mid 1980's. Wonder why? Although it's an over-used buzz-word, the OS might support some kind of object-oriented ontology. I like the idea of building modules functionality and clicking them together in different ways. The Mac already supports this with CDEVS, INITs and so forth... thus if you want a window or panel with different functionality than those provided... you just write a CDEF and install it. This is very cool but it often means a LOT of code and that code is pretty esoteric stuff. An object-oriented programming way of looking at things might make this more modular and easier to program. Might facilitate sharing of building blocks (OOPS classes and libraries) better too! o Better documentation for the system, finder and toolbox. I have to glean much too much information from the network. EVERYTHING should be documented. The Inside Mac books are a good start but they aren't nearly as comprehensive as they should be. They are also rather difficult to read. Unfortunately I am forced to suppliment these books with the Macintosh Revealed series, the technical notes and other communications. For example... where are the operations of the MultiFinder documented? Why in a seperate document you can only obtain from APDA... "The MultiFinder Programmer's Guide." Lack of documentation is a frustration to developers and makes the Mac Look like a toy. o 1-2 year warrenty on Apple hardware. Please? Applecare is much too expensive. Doesn't Apple trust it's own hardware to offer a better warrenty (although I notice that NeXT only offers 90 days as well)? I also detest having to rely on dealers for service and technical support. The technical people employed by dealers often don't know the basic technical facts (much less the deep hacker's esoterica). This situation resembles the methodology car manufacturers use to support car buyers... let them rely on the dealerships for service and support. Yuk! o Scalable picture and font technology. I realize that this is coming in some form or other however it doesn't look like Apple's new scalable fonts will be Postscript compatible. It would be great if all of the draw and paint programs on the new machine integrated scalable colour text and graphics in an integrated fashion. Can you say Postscript? I know that what I've just described sounds a LOT like the NeXT computer and for good reason. Jobs and Co. have done a wonderful job of synthesising various technologies into one beautifully designed package that didn't worry about being backward compatible. The Mac is still the computer for the 80's and shows it. The 80's over. What will the Mac of the 90's look like? -- John T. Nelson UUCP: sun!sundc!potomac!jtn Advanced Decision Systems Internet: jtn@potomac.ads.com 1500 Wilson Blvd #512; Arlington, VA 22209-2401 (703) 243-1611