Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ukma!gatech!rutgers!att!alberta!ubc-cs!fornax!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@fornax.UUCP (Ken Mcdonald)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Mac graphics/ECS/Amiga Graphics Programs
Summary: Here's the answer for screen res
Message-ID: <902@fornax.UUCP>
Date: 28 Feb 89 02:29:09 GMT
References: <9742@louie.udel.EDU>
Organization: School of Computing Science, SFU, Burnaby, B.C. Canada
Lines: 23


[question concerning the resolution of the MacII screen plus other
stuff deleted]

The resolution of the Mac II screen (or any mac screen, for that matter)
is limited by the Quickdraw algorithms in ROM to a maximum of 32,768x32,768.
Macintoshes are never designed with a colours/resolution tradeoff, i.e., if
you can get a certain resolution, then you can get it using the max number
of colours your graphics card is capable of.  Currently, the Mac II is limited
to 256 colours.  When System 7.0 is released for the Mac (later this year, I
guess), it will support 32-bit pixels, giving 16 million+ colours,+ 8 extra
pixels/bit for use by applications.

Of course, what you can actually do is limited by hardware.  The current
highest res I am aware of for a MacII is something like 1600x1200x256 grey
levels--but this is a hardware limit only, not forced by the OS, and since
hardware will continue to improve, software should not be written with any
limits but those imposed by QuickDraw in mind.

Hope this helps.

Ken McDonald
{...!ubc-cs!mcdonald@fornax.uucp}