🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2harjb$9c9@bushwire.apana.org.au> Tetragon@Lisa.apana.org.au writes:
>Marc N. Barrett (barrett@iastate.edu) wrote:
>>      Printer drivers (note 1)
>
>The very fact that the OS still supports it just incase some decent driver
>are accidentally written & used is still a bonus in this argument.
>(Ie: it wouldnt take a change of OS if I decided to write a decent driver.)

   Oh yes it would!  The problems with the drivers go MUCH deeper than just
the drivers themselves.  The problem is that AmigaOS has virtually NO support
for structured objects, and so applications always compose bitmaps, which are
sent to the drivers for printing.  This compares to the Mac, where the OS
has EXTENSIVE support for structured objects, and where these objects are
passed to the drivers rather than crude bitmaps.  On the Mac, if the printer
is a bitmap printer (IE: a non-PostScript printer), it is up to the driver and
not the OS to create the bitmap.  

   You can see a symptom of the Amiga's totally broken printing system by
looking at the PostScript driver that comes with 2.1 and 3.1.  Do you notice
those "Vertical DPI" and "Horizontal DPI" boxes in the PrinterPS prefs
program?  One of the primary purposes of PostScript is to get output that is
totally resolution-independent.  IE: you can take the PS output, send it to
a 2700 DPI imagesetter, and it will take advantage of all of the resolution
of the imagesetter.  So why does the Amiga's PostScript driver produce PS
files with hardcoded resolutions that totally negate PostScript's resolution-
independent features?  It is because there is no way the Amiga's PostScript
driver CAN'T be resolution-independent, since Amiga applications NEVER pass
structured objects to the printing system.


>>      Device-independent graphics
>
>Isn't this RTG? Isn't this practically a sure thing, effectivly for a later
>version of the OS? (No, don't answer that, we just can't rely on C=, we know
>this, lets just hope and think of what might be. It would sort of fit in
>with your `wish-list' as above.)
>
>Atleast the independant makers of most 3rdParty 24bit cards et-al usually
>have effective RTG for their own boards, and this effectively covers the
>majority of users who would like a standard RTG. (This is discounting
>ofcourse those who would then find RTG usefull if implemented as standard.
>But who can really say for sure about that?)

   These are crude hacks and don't do much.  True RTG would give you things
like 24-bit support and much greater compatibility between third-party
graphics cards.

>>      Device-independent audio
>
>I don't know if this is really so important, but anyway, if it was, what other
>platform has such features?

   The Macintosh and OS/2 2.1, for example.  System 7.1 has a new Sound
Manager that is completely device-independent.  With the Sys7 Sound Manager,
Apple was able to switch from 8-bit stereo sound via a custom sound chip to
16-bit 4-channel stereo sound via a DSP, with no problems with compatibility
with programs that properly use the Sound Manager.  OS/2 2.1 also has device-
independent audio support.  iE: under OS/2 2.1, you only need one driver for
your audio card, and that driver will allow DOS/Windows, and OS/2 software 
to work with your audio card, regardless of its capabilities.

+++++++
 ++++      Marc Barrett  -MB-
   ++      IRC nick: Cyclone  |  e-mail: barrett@iastate.edu
   +       Amiga: No excellence, just bullshit