Animator not Pro!
3 messages in this thread
I have sent in a long laundry list of changes for Animator which include
some changes for the interface, which is clunky. I've used Macs a ton and,
yes, there's a standard interface that everybody is used to. Is it the
best? Not necessarily, but people are used to it and it's not bad. I have
no doubt that ADesk will make their interface more elegant. Interesting
that you should mention that AAP corresponds to Director v.1.0, since
animator's current version is 1.0. I am confident that the next version of
AAP will make a MUCH larger jump than Director did. Autodesk is
deliberately not pushing for 24-bit support until there is a VESA standard
for that mode. The one real advantage (and disadvantage, as far as I'm
concerned) of the Mac is that there's only one hardware platform. All Mac
developers know what they're going to be running on (not counting all the
changes and built-in incompatibilities that Apple tosses out the door). Not
so in the world of PC's. This is more demanding on programmers, but, in the
long run, is the best approach for developing better hardware. There are
lots of 24-bit chunks of hardware out there that AAP could run on, but
ADesk would be saddled with developing compatibility with all of them. In
conjunction with their position as a large corporation whose real purpose
is to make money, ADesk will wait until they need only invest in designing
for one standard.
David Taffet
Enjoy your open PC platfrom while it lasts. Microsoft, Apple, IBM, SUN and
other PC Manufacturers have a vested intrest in pushing proprietarty
technology. It is more profitable. The battle taking shape between Windows
NT and PowerPC is over standards not technology.
Whoever controls industry standards controls the technology. There is a
funny thing happeneing in the PC industry. Since the release of Windows 3.0
and then 3.1 Microsoft has been forcing more and more software and hardware
developers to do things it's way. Windows NT will have so many stringent
hardware and software compatability constraints that for all intents and
purposes it will be a proprietary operating system. Doesn't that sound
familiar?
I think competition is great. Since the release of Windows 3.1, Macs have
gotten much more powerful and much cheaper. I hope we never return to the
days when a Big Blue can demand whatever they want in return for the
priviledge of using THEIR technolgy or an Apple can demand whatever it
wants for the priviledge of double-clicking on an icon.
I must concurr with that last paragraph, most emphatically! Especially
regarding Microsoft, whose TV campaign and bundling agreements with clone
manufacturers are pushing Windows onto many desks where it does its usual
thing of slowing down and locking up systems.
DT
P.S. When it comes to proprietary systems, there isn't one more proprietary
than Apple's. No one can clone the OS, no one can clone the hardware. Other
than that, it's pretty open.