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From: aaron@jessica.stanford.edu (Aaron Wallace)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: give me solid facts: why is the mac better than MeSsy DOS/WINDOWS
Message-ID: <1991Mar30.000832.17649@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 30 Mar 91 00:08:32 GMT
References: <1991Mar24.065427.16198@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <1991Mar26.011127.28302@amd.com> <1991Mar26.063111.3133@cs.uoregon.edu> <1991Mar27.195719.15623@maths.tcd.ie> <10212@hub.ucsb.edu>
Sender: Aaron Wallace
Organization: Academic Information Resources
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In article <10212@hub.ucsb.edu> doner@henri.UUCP (John Doner) writes:
>In article <1991Mar27.195719.15623@maths.tcd.ie> mike@maths.tcd.ie (MIKE ROGERS) writes:
>>	The Amiga just goes ahead and launches multiple copies. I saw this
>>happen with a user and ProPage2. She'd launched three copies of the program 
>>before I could stop her, each overlaying the other. Nice.
>
>Why would one want this functionality?  I use a Mac with Multifinder
>running, and I can have multiple copies of the same program running if
>I make duplicate copies of the program on the disk, using different
>names, and then starting each of them.  But so what?

Ah, but on the Mac you get two entirely separate programs, each eating up
its full share of memory.  Under Windows all the code is shared, so the second
copy is much cheaper than the first.

>The "normal capabilities," which most commercial Mac programs nowadays
>seem to have, include the ability of an application program to have
>several documents open at once in separate windows.  Given that,
>what's the point of running several copies of the same program?

The key word is "most."  MacDraw for years didn't have multiple windows.
Most games don't.  Most DAs don't.  Many toy shareware programs don't.

Running two copies would be a good fix to this limitation.  Many Windows apps
don't support multiple windows because they don't have to--they get it for free
through Windows.  I mean, let's say you want to have two versions of a chess
game running at the same time or whatever.  Most, if not all, games don't
support multiple windows--nor should they really have to.  With Windows this
isn't a problem at all (unless the silly program can't run multiply, which
means it was written poorly).

Other reasons: some programs like to have "global" (i.e. across windows)
settings.  Multiple copies allow one to have different copies with different
settings.

Aaron Wallace