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From: lsr@apple.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Mac vs. Amiga
Message-ID: <405@apple.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Jan-87 13:52:16 EST
Article-I.D.: apple.405
Posted: Mon Jan 26 13:52:16 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Jan-87 05:46:46 EST
References: <241@elxsi.UUCP> <3986@utcsri.UUCP>
Reply-To: lsr@apple.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Advanced Technology Group, Apple Computer
Lines: 41
Xref: watmath comp.sys.amiga:1698 comp.sys.mac:946

In article <3986@utcsri.UUCP> flaps@utcsri.UUCP (Alan J Rosenthal) writes:
>voluntarily give up its control of the cpu (by calling SystemTask, I think it
>is)*, with windows the mac doesn't store what's obscured when a window goes
>on top of another window.  Therefore the user program must store this at all
>times, because it is wiped out before the user program gets notified that the
>window has been obscured.  Then the user program must redraw the contents of
>the window that was obscured when the window is brought to front again.
>

It is possible to have the system remember the contents of a window and
refresh it automatically.  Most applications don't do this because the data
needed to refresh the window is readily available, and it is easy to just
redraw it as necessary.  If your application had multiple disk-based
documents open at once, you might prefer to have the system do the refresh,
since that might avoid disk acesses needed to bring the data back into
memory. 

>Therefore I think it is a gross understatement to say that the Amiga merely
>performs these functions automatically rather than the user program having
>to do it itself.  The Amiga supports windows completely and the Mac does not.
>On the Amiga, for example, you can draw into a backgrounded window, one of
>the fundamental things you might want to do with a window.
>

You can draw into a background Macintosh window as well.  The system handles
all the clipping for you.

As far as I can tell, programming the 2 machines is equally difficult (or
easy).  The Macintosh has built in text editing primitives and a wider
variety of graphics primitives, but the Amiga handles resizing, moving, and
updating windows automatically.  

-- 
Larry Rosenstein

Object Specialist
Apple Computer

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