Charles Macintosh was a Scottish chemist. He was born in 1766 and died in 1843. While trying to utilise the coal-naptha given off in distilling tar, he discovered a process of dissolving India-rubber and waterproofing cloth. He patented the invention in 1823, and the Mackintosh was created. Research Charles Macintosh
Adobe Acrobat is a coding system developed by Adobe Systems for electronic publishing applications. It was launched 1993. Acrobat coding was designed to turn computers into information distributors that would allow Macintosh users to view a document in its original form, and can be generated directly from PostScript files. Research Adobe Acrobat
Adobe PageMill is a commercial Windows HTML editor. It was originally developed for the Macintosh, it is also available for Windows 95 offering WYSIWYGHTML editing as well as incorporation of many of the most popular Web capabilities. Research Adobe PageMill
Canvas is a precision drawingpackage for the Mac that lets you create presentation materials, desktop publishing images, or architectural renderings. Its large selection of powerful, easy-to-use tools makes it one of the more popular drawing programs. Icons and menu options provide continuous multipoint Bezier curves, instant autotrace conversion of bitmap images to unlimited drawing layers, 1/65,000th of an inch precision, and text and graphics in 16.7 million colours plus PostScript grey scales in 1% increments.
For touching up clipped or scanned art, Canvas provides a number of painting tools which can be used on the same layers as the drawing tools. Canvas supports 24-bit colour on the Macintosh II, hairlines to 1/1000th of an inch, auto-dimensioning of lines and arcs, and a zoom capacity ranging from 3% to 3,200%. The program adds area and perimeter calculations, a peel-away ruler, PixelPaintcompatible colour palettes, smooth multipoint polygons, and special effects such as object rotation in one degree increments, distortion, and one or two point perspective.
Canvas also features object libraries (macros) that function as extensions to the drawing toolbox. Up to 32 objects can be added to any macro library, and macro libraries can be saved as individual files. A desk accessory version of Canvas can be invoked while working with other programs and provides approximately 80%, of the program's capabilities. The program also has a bitmap conversion option for transforming scanned colour or grey scale images into one of 15 predefined halftone or dithered images (for the Macintosh II only). Research Canvas
Caoutchouc is an elastic gummy substance, chemically a hydrocarbon, contained in the milky juice of a number of tropical trees of various orders, among the chief being the Siphonia elastica (Hevea elastica) and others of the same genus growing in South America. The name is also used as an equivalent of india-rubber, but strictly caoutchouc is only the chief ingredient of india-rubber. The crude india-rubber is most commonly obtained by making incisions in the trunks of the trees, whence the sap exudes in the form of a milky fluid which gradually thickens and solidifies.
Caoutchouc is a non-conductor of electricity and a bad conductor of heat. It is not dissolved by water, hot or cold, but chloroform, oil of turpentine, bisulphide of carbon, etc, dissolve it. It was not until about the year 1736 that india-rubber (now popularly known as simply rubber) was known in Europe. It was at first only used to rub out pencil-marks, but before the end of the 19th century it was used to render leather and other substances water-tight, and in 1823 Macintosh took out a patent for the waterproof materials prepared with caoutchouc which bear his name. Latterly its uses have become innumerable. Gutta percha is a similar substance to caoutchouc, and is often popularly confounded with it. Research Caoutchouc
Claris CAD is a drawing and drafting program that provides most of the features required by professional artists, drafts people, and engineers creating two-dimensional drawings. It is one of the most comprehensive design programs available on the Macintosh. There are many tools available for geometric construction including double line drawing, spline and freehand curves, the ability to join lines into polygons, and the ability to part the lines in an object. Rotating objects around a point and mirroring objects around a line is easy.
Claris CAD includes many tools that aid in precise placement of objects and text. You can create an unlimited number of layers that can be viewed in any combination. Each layer can use multiple scales of measurement. Dimensioning can be automatic and is easily edited. You have a choice of linear, radial, diametric, and angular dimensioning, and all can be preset or custom-made.
Claris CAD offers a wide variety of features, including 25 drawing tools and tool modifiers; up to four different ways of drawing objects; the ability to have precise specifications for the size, location, and angles of objects in a drawing; automatic updating of drawings to meet new specifications; support of the five drawing standards used in professional drawing environments; precise zoom controls; and the ability to manage several windows on the screen at one time. Fonts can range in size from one point to 127 points. Style sizes and justifications can be combined. Text can be coloured and rotated. Claris CAD allows you to create libraries of objects that can be recalled by sight or name. Claris CAD includes MacPlot drivers to support Hewlett-Packard and Houston Instrument plotters. Research Claris CAD
FileMaker II by Claris, was a database publishing tool that combined file management and form generation to give impressive visual impact. FileMaker II supported full font and size control and line and box drawing. It was a good product for generating business forms and was compatible with Macintosh networks such as ApphShare and TOPS. FileMaker II could be used to create and run scripts for automating repetitive jobs such as printing mailing labels and performing searches. Although FileMaker II was not considered a relational database, its look-up function gave it some relational attributes that let users copy data from other files when the key fields matched. Even though
FileMaker II stored all the working records on disk and not in RAM, it searched database files quickly because each word was automatically indexed. Picture fields were not indexed. Indexes enhance the speed of searches only not sorts, so large data fits took some time to complete their sorts.
FileMaker II let you generate professional-quality reports and forms using an interface similar to MacDraw. Research FileMaker II
GEM Draw Plus by Digital Research, is a freehand-drawing program that runs under the GEM/3 desktop. As with other drawing programs, GEM Draw Plus provides a desktop of tools, similar to the way the Macintosh works. You can choose elements such as lines, boxes, circles, and other polygons and text in multiple fonts, sizes, and styles when creating an image. The product can be used to create organisation charts, page borders, floor plans, logos, and other types of diagrams. GEM Draw Plus has a library of over 100 pre-drawn icons and symbols which can be incorporated. Any picture you draw can be stored in your personal picture library and used in other drawings. Because GEM offers a windowing environment, graphics can be cut and pasted between windows.
GEM Draw Plus offers a choice of colours, patterns, line widths, and type styles. The zoom feature uses arrows and scroll bars to display areas of your picture for close detailed work. A Snap command automatically returns you to the spot on the grid where you were last working. Research GEM Draw Plus
Hijaak is a graphics accessory program that lets you convert graphic files from one format to another. The program captures screen images and graphics data (both text and data) in CGA, EGA, VGA, ATT, DEB, and Hercules graphics resolutions, and converts graphic files from one format to another on a variety of machines including the IBMPC, Macintosh, and Amiga. HiJaak is ideal for desktop publishing or presentation graphics users who want to move a graphic image into a document where the formats are incompatible. For example, bringing a vector-based drawing or CAD picture into a painting package or bringing a Mac paint image into an IBM paint package. Research HiJaak
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Charles Macintosh
