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From: matthews@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Jim Matthews)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: 'Virtual Monitors'
Message-ID: <18316@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 5 Jan 90 16:59:39 GMT
References: <1086@crash.cts.com>
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Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
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In article <1086@crash.cts.com> uzun@pnet01.cts.com (Roger Uzun) writes:
>  You CAN do this on the Amiga no
>problem, what you cannot do on the Mac II is create custom screens with
>your preferred resolution (up to about 710X490).  For the programmer, the
>amigas way of doing this is MUCH more flexible.

This flexibility violates the spirit of a multitasking OS.  A program
shouldn't be able to unilaterally modify the appearance of another
program's window.  Allowing programs to change resolution or screen
depth means that they can monopolize a shared resource, namely the
screen.

The Mac has one problem in this regard, in that programs can change the
color palette for a screen.  This problem will disappear when true
color is affordable and fast enough for programs to dispense with color
lookup tables.

Jim Matthews
Dartmouth Software Development