United States site instead?Graphisoft confirms its support of the next generation operating system
Budapest, Hungary (November 20, 2000) — Graphisoft today announced that it will support MacOS X, Apple’s next generation operating system. Archicad will run native in the Carbon environment, meaning it will take full advantage of all new system services, and optionally run on MacOS 9 with no loss in performance.
MacOS X features state-of-the-art technology throughout, including advanced Internet and graphics technologies, a new user interface named Aqua, and an open-source UNIX-based foundation named Darwin.
“Graphisoft began developing for the Apple Lisa, and has been committed to staying current with all MacOS version upgrades since the Macintosh debuted in 1984, including being one of the first to develop a native application for the PowerPC chip,” reports Graphisoft’s Chief Technology Officer László Sparing. “We have a very strong and loyal Macintosh user base. With the carbonization of Archicad, they will receive tremendous gains in usability thanks to a stable multi-tasking environment and true memory protection.”
Major MacOS X features, and how they will affect Archicad:
- Pre-emptive multitasking. When Archicad is running in the background, all other open applications and the system software will remain responsive, and vice versa.
- Protected memory. Application or system bugs that previously lead to a crash of the entire system will no longer affect other applications or the system. This represents a significant improvement in overall system stability.
- Dynamic virtual memory allocation. Applications that require a lot of memory are assigned resources as needed; no more “Memory Full” messages.
- Aqua look & feel. Combines superior ease of use with spectacular and cheerful semi-transparent and animated graphical user interface components. All Archicad dialog boxes and palettes have been revised and modified to accommodate the different sizes of the Aqua interface elements (pop-up menus, buttons etc.).
- Quartz display engine. The Quartz 2D graphics engine is a background technology to serve the Aqua graphical user interface. It will be apparent in graphical user interface components, but not within the Archicad window. Apple does not recommend this for applications running on both MacOS 9 and X.
Apple released a preview version of MacOS X Public Beta, in September 2000. The beta includes many applications, including Apple’s new Mail client (IMAP and POP compatible) and new versions of the QuickTime player and Sherlock Internet searching tool, as well as a beta version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, the most popular browser for the Mac.