Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!uhnix1!sugar!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Architecture questions
Message-ID: <_8S58T9@xds13.ferranti.com>
Date: 9 Sep 90 12:57:25 GMT
References: <10057@goofy.Apple.COM> <2516@l.cc.purdue.edu> <6838.26e7f109@vax1.tcd.ie>
Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 15

In article <6838.26e7f109@vax1.tcd.ie> rwallace@vax1.tcd.ie writes:
> 4. Graphics (best done in chunks as large as the CPU can handle, using barrel
>    shifters and masking)

That depends. Bit pointers could be used to make any graphics
operations that work on a pixel level (as opposed to BitBlt) a whole
lot faster. Rotated images, for example... BitBlt can be used (fairly
inefficiently) to rotate by 90 degree increments, but you need to operate
on a pixel level otherwise.

How much bit-banging is done on a Mac, or in the rendering engine of your
laser printer?

I suspect, myself, that communications, statistics, and finance comprise
the majority of computational resources. Compilers aren't even in the noise.
-- 
Peter da Silva.   `-_-'
+1 713 274 5180.   'U`
peter@ferranti.com