Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
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From: torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie)
Subject: Re: The Amiga's Future
Message-ID: <1991Jun9.182934.3206@neon.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: torrie@neon.Stanford.EDU (Evan James Torrie)
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA
References: <5092@orbit.cts.com> <50205@ut-emx.uucp> <_n1H0j?q@cs.psu.edu>
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1991 18:29:34 GMT
Lines: 34

melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes:

>In article <50205@ut-emx.uucp> awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels) writes:

>   Oh, please.  I can quite easily get a monitor that will display 36-120 dpi for
>   my machine.  72 dpi is an important number for the Mac, but it isn't the
>   only number.


>Are you sure about this?  I remember reading in a MacWorld a couple of
>years ago where they mentioned that the Mac only supports 72dpi
>monitors.  

  Yes, in terms of WYSIWYG.  It's possible to buy display systems with
different dpi values (such as Sigma's L-View, which has 36, 45, 60,
72, 96 and 120 dpi) all switchable in software.  But, the display
doesn't get clearer - everything just gets bigger or smaller, thus
losing your WYSIWYG display.  This is because QuickDraw doesn't really
know about resolution independent devices in the same way that say
Postscript does.

>Before True Type and ATM you only had bitmap fonts and they
>must be done for every display resolution.  Methinks 72dpi is
>hardwired into the Mac.

  In terms of compatibility, it seems to be almost hardwired into the 
Mac.  Although there have been some changes which make QuickDraw handle
different resolutions better, I think it will require the release of
the post-Mac machine (next year?) to really eliminate this problem.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evan Torrie.  Stanford University, Class of 199?       torrie@cs.stanford.edu   
       "Apes evolved from creationists" - seen on a bumper sticker.