Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!haven!uflorida!gatech!bloom-beacon!apple!parent
From: parent@Apple.COM (Sean Parent)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Text Drawing at speeds greater than 1200baud
Summary: DON'T WRITE DIRECTLY TO THE SCREEN
Message-ID: <24307@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 19 Jan 89 19:25:16 GMT
References: <2243@uokmax.UUCP> <27572@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 19

In article <27572@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster) writes:
> (o) if and only if the destination is a 1-bit deep pixmap, completely
> visible, the front window, and un-obscured by other windows, than do the
> following ultra-fast code. Otherwise, use the DrawText solution you've
> already been told about.

There is no way to tell for sure that there are not any windows in front of
your window. The system owns the screen.

> (o) use hand-tuned assembly language to move one of our 9x7 characters to
> the screen using 9 move.b instructions.

You cannot be garenteed access to the screen memory.

You could use a subset of this approach to build strikes off-screen and then
blast them up using copyBits. (copyBits is very fast and is tuned for each
processor)

Sean