Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:46881 comp.sys.mac:45612 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uwm.edu!lll-winken!arisia!sgi!shinobu!odin!odin.corp.sgi.com!portuesi From: portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: 'Virtual Monitors' Message-ID: Date: 5 Jan 90 11:54:17 GMT References: <1086@crash.cts.com> <18316@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> Sender: news@odin.SGI.COM Reply-To: portuesi@sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mtn. View, CA Lines: 32 In-reply-to: matthews@eleazar.dartmouth.edu's message of 5 Jan 90 16:59:39 GMT >>>>> On 5 Jan 90 16:59:39 GMT, matthews@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Jim Matthews) said: jim> 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. jim> This flexibility violates the spirit of a multitasking OS. A program jim> shouldn't be able to unilaterally modify the appearance of another jim> program's window. Allowing programs to change resolution or screen jim> depth means that they can monopolize a shared resource, namely the jim> screen. On the Amiga, application programs do not change resolution or depth of the display. Rather, they request their own "virtual screen" with a custom color palette, display depth, mode settings, etc. Intuition (the Amiga windowing interface) manages each one of these virtual screens separately, and allows the user to move and stack them on the physical screen in real time, much like sliding chalkboards in a lecture hall. The end result is that each application gets the screen display they want to have without disturbing other concurrent applications, which is in the spirit of a multitasking OS. This is not meant to be a "my computer is better than your computer" flame. It is meant solely to correct misinformation. --M -- __ \/ Michael Portuesi Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Inc. portuesi@SGI.COM Entry Systems Division -- Engineering