thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) (10/10/89)
"How quickly they forget". Sigh. The item at the end of this posting appeared
in the Monday, October 9, 1989, ``BUSINESS SECTION'' of the San Francisco
Chronicle (a daily newspaper).
The article is the ``ON COMPUTERS'' column by Bob Schwabach. Bob Schwabach is
a syndicated computer columnist based in Philadelphia.
Isn't West Chester somewhere near Philadelphia?
The article prompted me to look at some old (1980-1986) editions of the
COMMODORE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED annual reports. For those who don't know, CBM
back then (circa 1976-1982) was headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with a
manufacturing plant on Walsh Avenue in Santa Clara, CA. I mention this only to
remind myself how much media "exposure" CBM lost by leaving Silicon Valley
("Yah. Thankyew Unca Jack. Stick it in and twist it around some more.")
Let's hope the anticipated multi-mega$$$ CBM ad campaign rebukes disinformation
such as the following article which, by the way, wasn't accompanied by any
copyright notice (unusual for the SF Chronicle); I'm surprised the author, Bob
Schwabach, had the guts to affix his name to such outright drivel, sycophancy,
and Apple- and IBM-philia. And note the total lack of trademark attributions
to the respective parties. It's my conjecture he must have been given some
"freebies"; I'm NOT going to comment on what he SHOULD be given! :-) :-)
As I remember, Deluxe Paint was premiered at the July 1985 introduction of the
Amiga at Lincoln Center in New York City 4-1/4 years ago. The Amiga version is
already up to ``III'', has color, brushes, animation & etc. Not one mention of
the Amiga version of DPaint (or DPaint's genesis) appears in the following
article. In any event, here's the article, EXACTLY as it appeared:
"
Electronic Arts' Winning Paint Programs for IBM, Macintosh
A new enhancement to Deluxe Paint II adds more power for less money to what has
already become the No.1 IBM paint program. Just a list of the features would
take up nearly two of these columns.
The same company, Electronic Arts, makes the best paint programs for the color
Macintosh, Studio 8, and also the recently introduced Studio 1, which in just a
few weeks has become acknowledged as the best paint program for black-and-white
Macs.
What astonishes me is the speed with which Electronic Arts, which is well-known
as a game company, essentially has come out of nowhere in computer graphics to
dominate the field. In less than a year, it holds the leading programs for the
two machines that represent 90 percent of the personal computer market. The
only other company I can recall having lead products on the two biggest-selling
machines is MicroSoft, which is dominant in the whole software industry.
This shows how hard it is to categorize companies in this industry and also how
quickly skill plus programming and marketing can make you a leader in an area
where others seem securely established.
We first drew attention to Deluxe Paint about 1-1/2 years ago when, expecting
nothing much, we ran up the early version of the program and were impressed to
see that in many ways it was superior to the then current leader, PC Paintbrush
.
The next version, Deluxe Paint II, was even better and in the past year has won
numerous awards from computer magazines and user groups.
The company's rise in the Macintosh world has been even more rapid. Studio 8
came out early this year and prompted the normally conservative BYTE magazine,
the bible of the computer industry, to headline its first look with "Studio 8:
The Best Paint Yet."
Let's go through some of the features of these three Electronic Arts programs
for the IBM and Macintosh:
-- The newest, now carrying the somewhat unwieldy title of Deluxe Paint II
Enhanced, is listed at $130. The discount computer stores and mail-
order houses are certain to sell it for less than $100. It's a bargain.
Get it.
The enhanced version has a palette of 262,000 colors, supports all IBM
graphics modes (including VGA) and has drivers for 250 printers.
The program can automatically shade colors from light to dark to produce
3-D effects and can do translucent colors for creating shadows and
special effects.
You can maintain the color of an object but change the hue -- soften it,
for example. You can even adjust the brightness and contrast in only a
part of the drawing rather than the whole picture.
You can cycle through palettes: do a typical landscape, for example, and
then ask the computer to replace all the greens and blues with
appropriate shades of violet and tan. You get pretty interesting and
sometimes stunning pictures this way.
But maybe the niftiest feature of the new Deluxe Paint is a command
called "brush." A brush in Deluxe Paint is not just a paintbrush but
can be "dipped" into any image your heart desires and your hand can
create. It can be your company logo, for example, or a letterhead.
Paint with the brush, and what comes out is the logo.
The brush can be used to paint or "wrap" your logo or letterhead around
any shape. Want to see what something looks like wrapped around a Coke
bottle or a motorcycle helmet or a racehorse? Create the shape, select
the brush and wrap it.
Commercial artists and advertising agencies are going to love this one.
The wrapping technique is similar to the tricks you see on the lead-ins
to Monday Night Football or the nightly news.
-- In the Mac world, Studio 8 has been a knockout. Unlike Deluxe Paint II,
this is an expensive program -- almost $500 at full retail -- but
anyone who has a color Macintosh already has spent $6,000 to $10,000,
and, at that point I guess an extra $500 would seem trivial.
Among its many features are such niceties, for example, as being able
to select whether or not you paint in oil or watercolors.
You can do color sampling with Studio 8 and make the sample into a paint
color. This is a trick that usually available only on extremely
expensive programs.
It works like this: Let's say you have a picture of a beautiful model,
but she has a blemish on one cheek. No problem. You select a drawing
tool that looks like an eye dropper and take up a drop of color from the
clear skin near the mark. That drop becomes your brush color.
This program, like Deluxe paint, also does slide-show presentations
for business meetings. It's almost an afterthought, but many other
paint programs require the purchase of an additional program to do this.
-- The new Studio 1 is essentially a blank-and-white version of Studio 8,
and added on top of that is animation. This is state of the art, and
Studio 1 is absolutely the right program for the vast majority of people
who own black-and-white Macs, which still outnumber color Macs almost
10 to 1.
Studio 1 lists for $150 and is a steal. MacPaint costs almost this
much and doesn't even come close; the popular SuperPaint program costs
$200 and has fewer features and no animation.
______________________________________________________________________
Bob Schwabach is a syndicated computer columnist based in Philadelphia.
"martens@ketch.cis.ohio-state.edu (Jeff Martens) (10/11/89)
In article <22953@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: [ stuff deleted ] >The article prompted me to look at some old (1980-1986) editions of the >COMMODORE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED annual reports. For those who don't know, CBM >back then (circa 1976-1982) was headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with a >manufacturing plant on Walsh Avenue in Santa Clara, CA. I mention this only to >remind myself how much media "exposure" CBM lost by leaving Silicon Valley [ more stuff deleted ] How much did Commodore's move to West Chester have to do with their purchase of MOS Technology (6501, 6502, 6522, 6530, KIM-1, etc.) a few years back? -=- -- Jeff (martens@cis.ohio-state.edu) And for those of us who like to gloat: Green Bay 31, Dallas 13 Va. Tech 12, W. Va. 10