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From: wilson@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: Digitalk Smalltalk/V for Mac
Message-ID: <67500006@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu>
Date: 27 Jan 89 16:27:00 GMT
References: <89@<PETE>
Lines: 38
Nf-ID: #R:<PETE:89:uicbert.eecs.uic.edu:67500006:000:1641
Nf-From: uicbert.eecs.uic.edu!wilson    Jan 27 10:27:00 1989


I asked similar questions a while back but got no responses.  If anybody
out there has any experience with V/Mac, please post any impressions
you have of it.

Here's what little I know:

   Smalltalk V/Mac uses the Macintosh user interface, with pulldown
menus and a menubar across the top of the screen.  This is different from
the Smalltalk-80 userface, which uses popup menus, etc.

   I think some standard classes behave a little differently, but the
basic language is almost Smalltalk-80.  (Has anybody ported programs
between these things?)

   Digitalk claims that Smalltalk/V Mac will run Smalltalk/V programs
developed on their PC (AT, etc.) version.  I don't know about the accuracy
or precision of this claim.  (How are the differences in window systems
handled?  Is MS Windows similar enough to the Mac interface that this
works?  How weird does the output look when you switch platforms?  How
well have they hidden the differences?)

   My impression is that V/Mac is fairly fast.  Anybody got benchmarks?
It's also smaller than Smalltalk-80 from ParcPlace, which is important
to some of us.  (We're considering Smalltalk for a lab of 4 Meg Mac II's,
and we want that to give us plenty of space left over for programs with
lots of live data.)

   I've received a couple of notes from other people with similar questions,
so if anybody has the information, please post.

  -- Paul


Paul R. Wilson                         
Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory    lab ph.: (312) 413-0042
U. of Ill. at Chi. EECS Dept. (M/C 154)  wilson@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu
Box 4348   Chicago,IL 60680          (or wilson@carcoar.stanford.edu)