Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!ames!oliveb!sun!hanami!landman From: landman%hanami@Sun.COM (Howard A. Landman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: A Programmer Praises the Mac (r Message-ID: <70528@sun.uucp> Date: 28 Sep 88 00:01:59 GMT References: <76000192@uiucdcsp> Sender: news@sun.uucp Reply-To: landman@sun.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View Lines: 33 [This was buried in my dead.article file due to a system error some time ago. I thought it might still be of interest. HAL] In article <76000192@uiucdcsp> gillies@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes: >The multiple monitors trick is nice, but it's really just a trick. >Apple didn't pioneer it -- it's been running on Xerox Dorado computers >for at least three years. Make that "at least seven years". I worked on such a system in 1980 or 1981. Maureen Stone had a wonderful color "MacDraw-like" program, and it was hard to tell whether you had your colors right on a B&W display. Of course, you could always print it out on your color "LaserWriter", but that took a while, and cost the company $1 per page. Anyway, one machine I worked on had a large color screen AND a normal Alto-style full-page B&W display to its left. The cursor moved freely between the two screens. I think this was one of the first 2 or 3 Dorados in existence. Maureen's program (Griffin) had some nice features due its being experimental, like being able to select the spline method for curve-fitting on a curve-by-curve basis. Cubic, Catmull-ROM, Bezier, and more, on a nice little menu. Apple didn't invent menus either ... In September 1980, I printed out a Griffin drawing and had it come out VERY bizarre. Polygon points were translated all over the page, leading to a jagged abstract effect. It turned out that there was a slightly bad chip in the color printer; when they replaced it a few days later, everything went back to normal. I thus have a unique art work, partially designed by myself and partially mutilated by a bit of errant circuitry, which I probably could never duplicate. Howard A. Landman landman@hanami.sun.com UUCP: sun!hanami!landman