edmoy@violet.berkeley.edu (05/13/89)
In article <4666@okstate.UUCP> norman@a.cs.okstate.edu (Norman Graham) writes: >Just thought I'd get my questions in early! ;-) > >1) How will the users of Postscript printers be affected by > outline fonts? Does Apple (or Adobe) plan to release > outline fonts that correspond to the postscript fonts > resident in the LWII or will we be stuck with bitmap > screen fonts? If we do get said fonts, will the Macintosh's > fonts or the LW's fonts be used for printing? In general > how do the new outline fonts work with a postscript printer? > (OK... so that was more than one question :-) At the Developer's Conference, Apple was uncommitted as to what outline fonts would be standard are part of 7.0. But they did say that when printing to a PostScript printer, if a resident font exists, it will use it instead of downloading the outline font. Since the Apple outline fonts are designed after quardratic B-splines (sorry to get too technical), there is a mathematical relationship between B-splines and Bezier curves, so that it is a relatively simple matter to convert from B-spline outlines to Bezier curves for use in a PostScript font. The tricky part is that Apple outline fonts contain much more information than just the outline, like information on how to modify the outline for best result at different printer (and screen) resolutions. I don't know how this is going to be solve, though I'd guess that if the resolution of the PostScript printer is known, the outline modification could be done before sending to the printer. >2) Will the virtual memory scheme offer memory protection for > multiple processes running under multifinder, or do all > processes share the same virtual address space (like the > current system)? In 7.0, virtual memory will not provide memory protection, though this is promised for some future release. Yes, multiple processes will run under MultiFinder (regular Finder by itself is not supported any more) in a single, large virtual memory space. The reason Apple gave for this is that it was too large a step to take to provide virtual memory, memory protection and true preemptive multi-tasking as too much software would break. Edward Moy Principal Programmer - Macintosh & Unix Workstation Support Services Workstation Software Support Group University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 edmoy@violet.Berkeley.EDU ucbvax!violet!edmoy
ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (05/13/89)
In article <24359@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, edmoy@violet.berkeley.edu writes... > >In 7.0, virtual memory will not provide memory protection, though this is >promised for some future release. Yes, multiple processes will run under >MultiFinder (regular Finder by itself is not supported any more) in a single, >large virtual memory space. > >The reason Apple gave for this is that it was too large a step to take to >provide virtual memory, memory protection and true preemptive multi-tasking >as too much software would break. But won't that same software break when System 8.0 comes out (assume 8.0 has memory protection/preemptive MT)? Or is Apple releasing/has released guidelines so that all future software won't break, and 8.0 will be far enough in the future that much of the software present when it's released will have been written since the new guidelines went into effect? Robert ------ ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu ------ generic disclaimer: all my opinions are mine ------ MOFO knows!