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From: edmoy@violet.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Outline fonts/virtual memory (was System 7.0 Q & A)
Message-ID: <24359@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 12 May 89 17:52:27 GMT
References: <30353@apple.Apple.COM> <4666@okstate.UUCP>
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In article <4666@okstate.UUCP> norman@a.cs.okstate.edu (Norman Graham) writes:
>Just thought I'd get my questions in early! ;-)
>
>1) How will the users of Postscript printers be affected by 
>   outline fonts?  Does Apple (or Adobe) plan to release
>   outline fonts that correspond to the postscript fonts
>   resident in the LWII or will we be stuck with bitmap
>   screen fonts?  If we do get said fonts, will the Macintosh's
>   fonts or the LW's fonts be used for printing?  In general
>   how do the new outline fonts work with a postscript printer?
>   (OK... so that was more than one question :-)

At the Developer's Conference, Apple was uncommitted as to what outline fonts
would be standard are part of 7.0.  But they did say that when printing to
a PostScript printer, if a resident font exists, it will use it instead of
downloading the outline font.

Since the Apple outline fonts are designed after quardratic B-splines (sorry
to get too technical), there is a mathematical relationship between B-splines
and Bezier curves, so that it is a relatively simple matter to convert from
B-spline outlines to Bezier curves for use in a PostScript font.  The tricky
part is that Apple outline fonts contain much more information than just the
outline, like information on how to modify the outline for best result at
different printer (and screen) resolutions.  I don't know how this is going
to be solve, though I'd guess that if the resolution of the PostScript printer
is known, the outline modification could be done before sending to the printer.

>2) Will the virtual memory scheme offer memory protection for
>   multiple processes running under multifinder, or do all
>   processes share the same virtual address space (like the 
>   current system)?

In 7.0, virtual memory will not provide memory protection, though this is
promised for some future release.  Yes, multiple processes will run under
MultiFinder (regular Finder by itself is not supported any more) in a single,
large virtual memory space.

The reason Apple gave for this is that it was too large a step to take to
provide virtual memory, memory protection and true preemptive multi-tasking
as too much software would break.

Edward Moy				Principal Programmer - Macintosh & Unix
Workstation Support Services		Workstation Software Support Group
University of California
Berkeley, CA  94720

edmoy@violet.Berkeley.EDU
ucbvax!violet!edmoy