Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!captkidd
From: captkidd@athena.mit.edu (Ivan Cavero Belaunde)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Mac II and VGA  (icky-poo, IBM stuff)
Keywords: Zenith FTM Mac II Board RasterOps
Message-ID: <10787@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 23 Apr 89 21:05:38 GMT
References: <1531@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> <8264@chinet.chi.il.us> <492@biar.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: captkidd@athena.mit.edu (Ivan Cavero Belaunde)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 38

In article <492@biar.UUCP> trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead) writes:
>Gee, off the top of my head, I can think of one very good reason.  The
>reason they didn't implement it is because nobody uses 2 or 4 bit
>modes.  I for one have yet to see an application that uses 2 or 4 bit
>graphics, and I doubt there is any good reason for such an App to be
>written, especially in a multiprogram environment (where you need
>extra colors so each App can have it's own palette).
>IMHO the 2 and 4 bit Color Quickdraw modes were a waste of time.

Actually, I kinda wish Apple had standardized on a minimum of 2 or 4 bit
QuickDraw display capability on their new machines.  Anyone who has seen
the NeXT machine's display (or Apple's own Fuzzy Fonts, for that matter),
will tell you that the use of grey scale type (to smooth out edges and
the like) will improve readability SIGNIFICANTLY.  Of course you should
still have bare bones B/W available (via Monitors CDEV) for the sake of
speed, but providing a minimum 2-bit or even 4-bit greyscale capability
on the SE/30 would have gone very far in promoting standarization to
antialiased fonts.  As it remains, Fuzzy Fonts is an year-old technology that
hasn't been used at all (since only the II line supports it - the SE/30
has Color QD in ROM, but not the display capability) and will take a while
for it to reappear.  Apple should place this up there with outline fonts,
however.  So, no, I don't think 2- and 4- bit modes were a waste of time,
I just wish there was more outspoken support from Apple for these.

>Robert J Woodhead, Biar Games, Inc.  ...!uunet!biar!trebor | trebor@biar.UUCP

-Ivan

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