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From: anders@verity.com (Anders Wallgren)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: Apple Computer wins ruling against 'Windows'
Message-ID: <1991Mar19.065315.12397@verity.com>
Date: 19 Mar 91 06:53:15 GMT
References: <46873@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <1991Mar15.101202.1@csc.anu.edu.au> 	<1468@vtserf.cc.vt.edu> <4321@gmdzi.gmd.de> <FRANCIS.91Mar16235229@arthur.zaphod.uchicago.edu> <4329@gmdzi.gmd.de>
Sender: usenet@verity.com (USENET News)
Reply-To: anders@verity.com (Anders Wallgren)
Organization: Verity, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 35
In-Reply-To: strobl@gmdzi.gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl)

In article <4329@gmdzi.gmd.de>, strobl@gmdzi (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:
>francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu writes:
>
>>In article <4321@gmdzi.gmd.de> strobl@gmdzi.gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:
>
>>   What about this tiny, 512 pixel wide screen? Does that count as high-res
>>   graphics?
>
>>Yes, it does.  72 pixels/inch.  And that's universal (except for this
>>blasted new 64 pixel/inch CheapColor monitor they just came out with),
>>so developers know their screens will look the same wherever.
>

This is wrong.  Different mac monitors have different screen
resolutions, and finding out a display device's resolution is
supported, and even required for some applications, especially
graphics and pre-press.  

>
>Standardizing on a fixed resolution seems to be a good idea, if you have
>all the hardware under your control. Calling that fixed resolution
>"high-res" sounds a bit like marketing hype, because it suggests that
>other systems use mostly lower resolutions, and that this is inferior.
>If the lower resolution is the result of using a bigger screen, it isn't.
>
>Having the GUI tolerate variable resolution is a good thing, in my
>opinion, if it has to support a broad range of output devices. It is not
>simple to abstract from hardware characteristics like resolution, and
>the applications may have to cooperate in order to do it, but it can be 
>done and it has been done. 
>

I agree, and the Macintosh does it.

anders