Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!cmcl2!ccnysci!alexis
From: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Mac II and VGA  (icky-poo, IBM stuff)
Keywords: Zenith FTM Mac II Board RasterOps
Message-ID: <1783@ccnysci.UUCP>
Date: 28 Apr 89 06:53:47 GMT
References: <1531@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> <8264@chinet.chi.il.us> <492@biar.UUCP>
Reply-To: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen)
Organization: City College of New York
Lines: 37

In article <492@biar.UUCP> trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead) writes:
>In article <8264@chinet.chi.il.us> henry@chinet.chi.il.us (Henry C. Schmitt) writes:
>>Anyway RasterOps makes a board which does what you want with two
>>caveats: it will only run in 1-bit or 8-bit modes (2 or 256 colors),
>>why they didn't implement 2 and 4-bit modes I don't know.
>
>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 [etc.]
>
>IMHO the 2 and 4 bit Color Quickdraw modes were a waste of time.

Well, you're usually right, but I think you blew it on this one.

What about the huge number of people who bought 4-bit Apple boards? I
often see people using 4-bit color. If they couldn't they would be
very very unhappy.

This doesn't have anything to do with RasterOps' decision not to support
2 and 4-bit, just with software companies' support for 2 and 4-bit.

There is another good reason to support 2 and 4-bit, but Apple has lazily
given up the initiative on this issue and nobody has stepped forward to
replace them. That reason is anti-aliased fonts. It is truly ridiculous
that after more than 2 years of support for gray scales, there are no such
fonts available (that I know of. Certainly, none widespread).

If such fonts existed they would be a very good reason to support 2-bit mode,
at least.

And if pigs had wings... :-(

---
Alexis Rosen
alexis@ccnysci.{uucp,bitnet}
alexis@rascal.ics.utexas.edu  (last resort)