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From: goer@sphinx.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: IBM's new System 2 Personal Computers
Message-ID: <1445@sphinx.uchicago.edu>
Date: Mon, 13-Apr-87 00:11:10 EST
Article-I.D.: sphinx.1445
Posted: Mon Apr 13 00:11:10 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Apr-87 00:43:25 EST
References: <775@oliveb.UUCP> <1579@bnrmtv.UUCP> <1339@uwmacc.UUCP> <1422@sphinx.uchicago.edu> <196@eli.UUCP>
Reply-To: goer@sphinx.UUCP (Richard L. Goerwitz III)
Organization: U Chicago Computation Center
Lines: 54
Summary: "Facts" not clear to me abt. graphics systems

In article <196@eli.UUCP> geller@eli.UUCP (David Geller) writes:
>In article <1422@sphinx.uchicago.edu>, goer@sphinx.uchicago.edu (me, Richard L. Goerwitz III) writes:
>> 
>> My main reasons for thinking that it might be worth putting up with Apple's
>> cute little tricks is that its vectored graphics system makes for the easy
>> display and manipulation of user-defined characters of almost any shape, and
>> ...On an IBM-type machine
>> this is all but impossible, unless one goes into bit-mapped graphics - a thing
>> that is slow, hard to use, and even harder to get applications programs to
>> recognize.
>
>The MACs graphics and characters are all memory mapped. Character may be
>drawn from vector "maps" or "templates" but its still bit-mapped
>graphics. The MAC doesn't contain any special hardware designed for explicit
>vectored graphics. Only a few manufacturers still make things like that
>(HP, Tektronix, etc.) for scopes and special displays (radar, string
>modeling, etc. What you are seeing on the MAC is software and software
>on the MAC or PC can be done better and faster. And I don't see the
>connection between an application program and a facility for drawing a
>given character set. FACTS please.

Apologies for failing to grapple with the facts.  I never tried to give the
impression that the MAC video display has facilities in the hardware itself
for vectored graphics.  My point, which was not well-expressed, was that
the machine is designed in such a way that the word-processing programs I
have seen used on it all have easy access to user-defined characters.  It's
more natural, apparently, for a MAC user to create these characters, then 
send them off to his applications programs, than it is for users of IBM-
compatible machines.  Let me emphasize the word SEEMS, since my knowledge of
the MAC is not as full as my knowledge of IBM-type machines.  With my IBM,
I can find no full-fledged academic word-processor which handles user-defined
characters as easily as the MAC.  None that I know of allow essentially un-
limited user-defined characters except, say, Gamma Productions' Multilingual
Scribe (this, however, is not really what I have been calling a "full-fledged
academic word-processor").  Most at best let you load 512 characters into an
EGA (or more into a Herc Plus) and then access them.  Those who have tried
writing in Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, etc., though, will realize at once that
fully-pointed text is impossible within these limitations.

While I recognize that these limitations with IBM-type machines are not in-
herent in the hardware, it does seem to me that the way the operating systems
of the respective systems were designed, as well as the approach independent
software developers have taken with the two machines, make the IBM a less
apt choice for someone in my position.  I had hoped that the new genreration
of IBM micros would remedy some of these deficiencies, but so far this does
not appear to have happened.

As for "facts" - if someone can provide me with information that would show
what I have said to be totally wrong, I would be delighted.  Believe me, it
would be welcome news to hear that I have fundamentally misconstrued my 
machine's capabilities.


                                            - Richard