Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!math.fu-berlin.de!opal!unido!gmdzi!strobl From: strobl@gmdzi.gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: give me solid facts: why is the mac better than MeSsy DOS/WINDOWS Message-ID: <4161@gmdzi.gmd.de> Date: 28 Feb 91 00:37:12 GMT References: <91.056.16:01:18@ira.uka.de> <91057.162111CXT105@psuvm.psu.edu> Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, F. R. Germany Lines: 27 CXT105@psuvm.psu.edu (Christopher Tate) writes: >Someone already mentioned this, but it needs to be said again (and again, and >again, and again....) >Since Day One, Macintoshes have been equipped with a mechanism built into the >firmware of the machine to allow applications ("programs," to you MS-DOS >people) to share information. This is the "Clipboard" concept, and its real >beauty is that it is designed to be *completely* application-independant. Is this really true? I.e. is the clipboard support really built into the firmware of the Macintosh? >[NB: I don't know much about Windows, so I don't know just how it attempts > to emulate the Clipboard metaphor. For now, I'll just describe the Mac's > behavior, and make educated guesses about MS-DOS.] I think Windows implements the clipboard metaphor similar to the way the Macintosh does: not at all similar to a real clipboard, fortunately. It implements a few things which simplify information sharing between applications runninc concurrently (different ones or multiple instances of one application): format rendering on demand and private clipboard formats , for example. I don't know how the Macintosh handles multiple applications or multiple clipboard formats. Wolfgang Strobl #include