SuperPaint (Macintosh)
Encyclopedia
SuperPaint was a graphics program capable of both bitmap painting
and vector drawing
simultaneously. It was originally written by William Snyder, published by Silicon Beach Software
and originally released in 1986 for the Apple Macintosh. William Snyder wrote and designed the program from his house on the Apple Lisa. Because there was no commercially available C compiler for the Mac at the time SuperPaint was ready to be compiled, it was done at the San Diego Super Computing Center. SuperPaint was one of the first programs of its kind, combining the features of MacPaint
and MacDraw
together. Later versions were published by Aldus
until about 1992. In September 1994, Aldus was absorbed by Adobe in a $525 million 1.15:1.00 common stock exchange.
Superpaint made some tasks easier than present day pixel paint or object oriented applications. Superpaint could create vector graphics drawings and transfer them back and forth between the vector graphics and pixel paint layers, hiding and recalling either layer. Tasks such as Option/Drag or Option/Shift/Drag to duplicate objects, followed by using the Duplicate function, allowed additional duplicates the same distance apart to be made.
As it requires Classic
, SuperPaint is unsupported as of Mac OS X version 10.5, but can still be used with the assistance of other programs.
Raster graphics
In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium...
and vector drawing
Vector graphics
Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer graphics...
simultaneously. It was originally written by William Snyder, published by Silicon Beach Software
Silicon Beach Software
Silicon Beach Software was an early developer of software products for the Macintosh personal computer. It was founded in San Diego, California by Charlie Jackson and his wife Hallie. Jackson later co-founded FutureWave Software with Jonathan Gay, the company that produced the first version of...
and originally released in 1986 for the Apple Macintosh. William Snyder wrote and designed the program from his house on the Apple Lisa. Because there was no commercially available C compiler for the Mac at the time SuperPaint was ready to be compiled, it was done at the San Diego Super Computing Center. SuperPaint was one of the first programs of its kind, combining the features of MacPaint
MacPaint
MacPaint was a bitmap-based graphics painting software program developed by Apple Computer and released with the original Macintosh personal computer on January 22, 1984. It was sold separately for US$195 with its word processor counterpart, MacWrite. MacPaint was notable because it could generate...
and MacDraw
MacDraw
MacDraw was a vector based drawing application released along with the first Apple Macintosh systems in 1984. MacDraw was one of the first WYSIWYG drawing programs that could be used in collaboration with MacWrite. MacDraw was useful for drawing technical diagrams and floorplans...
together. Later versions were published by Aldus
Aldus
Aldus Corporation, named after the 15th-century Venetian printer Aldus Manutius, was the inventor of the groundbreaking PageMaker software, a program that is generally credited with creating the desktop publishing field. The company was founded by Jeremy Jaech, Mark Sundstrom, Mike Templeman,...
until about 1992. In September 1994, Aldus was absorbed by Adobe in a $525 million 1.15:1.00 common stock exchange.
Superpaint made some tasks easier than present day pixel paint or object oriented applications. Superpaint could create vector graphics drawings and transfer them back and forth between the vector graphics and pixel paint layers, hiding and recalling either layer. Tasks such as Option/Drag or Option/Shift/Drag to duplicate objects, followed by using the Duplicate function, allowed additional duplicates the same distance apart to be made.
As it requires Classic
Classic (Mac OS X)
Classic, or Classic Environment, was a hardware and software abstraction layer in Mac OS X that allowed applications compatible with Mac OS 9 to run on the Mac OS X operating system...
, SuperPaint is unsupported as of Mac OS X version 10.5, but can still be used with the assistance of other programs.
