Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!DMZRZU71.BITNET!KAPFFER From: KAPFFER@DMZRZU71.BITNET (Matthias Kapffer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: GS+ Message-ID: <8803251226.aa07084@SMOKE.BRL.ARPA> Date: 26 Mar 88 15:23:15 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 33 X-Unparsable-Date: Friday, 25. March 1988 17:32 CET I'd like to focus your attention on an aspect which wasn't mentioned so far in the ongoing next generation IIgs discussion: Apple should enhance the Apple II compatiblity - that's what it is supposed to do (as stated earlier by someone else) and I bought it for. In particular I'm thinking of the missing *hardware* shadowing of text page 2 and the ignored color bit in black & white hires graphics resulting in the loss of the half point shift (Mark Kriegsman's 80 col in software demo is rather unuseable on a IIgs). Addtionally should the b/w mode be decoupled from annunciator 3 - we already have a selection for that in the control panel; but a change in this field seems to have no chance nowadays where this side effect has become a feature (you *do* remember the definition of "feature" in the glossary of the Apple ][+ Reference Manual, do you ?). Matthias Kapffer *) PS : There is *no* compatiblity problem in expanding super hires with a 640 x 400 submode. First of all, it can be done in 32K reducing color resolution down to 1 bit/pixel, i.e. 1 forground and 1 background color per scan line (using a position dependend lockup sheme like the 640 mode offers possibilities for color dithering). This could be integrated into current modes by using the spare bit in the mode bytes of every line so vertical resolution could be switched every line (like the 320/640 selection), i.e. you could choose between 320 x 200, 320 x 400, 640 x 200 and 640 x 400 and any mixture of that. As an alternative, the video image could be composed of two display areas (with no loss of color resolution) with a linearisation done in hardware (super hires alreay does this !). Second, one of the main tasks of QuickDraw is to provide a device indepentend graphics interface so software will works with different resolutions and display techniques. A proof for that are the countless large screens for the Mac and the LaserWriter II SC, which shows that QuickDraw can even drive a laser printer ! *: PostScript is a trademark of Adobe, Inc.