MacPaint and QuickDraw Source Code(computerhistory.org)

46 pointsby boh15 lat temu17 comments

http://www.computerhistory.org/highlights/macpaint/

5 comments

sp33215 lat temu

The Macintosh let the user change the desktop background by specifying an 8x8 black-and-white pattern, which would tile the screen. It was very difficult to make a pattern that actually looked any good. (The default was a simple checkerboard that approximated a nice 50% gray.) Atkinson couldn't stand most people's custom patterns, which were TBH pretty ugly. So instead of making real Mac windows, all the MacPaint windows were drawn in place over a fake desktop, with the default 50% gray pattern. You couldn't change the "desktop" pattern when you were using the MacPaint app. And you know what? No one complained - it was a nice-looking program :-)

Source: at the bottom of http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...

Samuel_Michon15 lat temu

When maximized, Photoshop still uses a 50% gray background. Not only would it be far too distracting if it showed my desktop picture in the background, the 50% gray surrounding helps me evaluate the colors onscreen.

sp33215 lat temu

Why is this in the museum? Well, Don Knuth once said that the MacPaint program was the best code ever written, and asked that the source be made available for study. Bill Atkinson rescued his old source code, and got Steve Jobs to push it through Apple's legal department. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/a...

ruff15 lat temu

Bill Atkinson remains one my idols. If only the Hypercard source would be released!

joshu15 lat temu

Pretty sure Andy pushed it through.

I got fwd'd a copy of the original thread :)

sp33215 lat temu

Yup, it was Andy - according to Andy, according to BusinessWeek :-)

Care to share that thread here?

dmboyd15 lat temu

I love this bit:

    appleMenu: IF NOT Monkey THEN
    BEGIN
      IF active THEN
        BEGIN
          KillStuff;

...

dmboyd15 lat temu

dchest15 lat temu

What does $S compiler directive mean?

dchest15 lat temu

Answering to myself: segment name. Usually 8 spaces, but there are some named ones, like SegInit, which get unloaded when they are no longer needed.

cosmicray15 lat temu

The 128 Mac had a very tight memory footprint (and no VM). Add to that that stuff was all being loaded from a floppy. The performance they were able to squeeze out of it was amazing.

igrekel15 lat temu

Wow, long time since I have last read Pascal code. Makes me wonder if there any Pascal code still in use somewhere.

nor-and-or-not15 lat temu

Sure. For example there's BESEN, which is a complete implementation of the ECMAScript 5th edition standard. Programmed by a single person in Object Pascal.

http://besen.sourceforge.net/

dchest15 lat temu

On the Mac, Interarchy FTP client still seem to have Pascal code, according to this 2007 interview http://daringfireball.net/2007/02/interarchy_interview

callahad15 lat temu

My previous employer still has actively maintained PL/I in production. Anything is possible in the bowels of Corporate America.

igrekel15 lat temu

Yes, I've seen Cobol, APL too... but pascal was not so much a language for business applications, except in delphi I guess.

neovive15 lat temu

There is definitely quite a bit of Cobol around on mainframes powering many mission-critical applications. Replacement of these old systems generates huge revenues for companies like Oracle/Peoplesoft and SAP.

Pascal was a great learning language. Probably second to BASIC, but much better as a precursor to learning C.