[krevis]

Not Woz, Bill Atkinson.

http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...

"Smalltalk didn't even have self-repairing windows - you had to click in them to get them to repaint, and programs couldn't draw into partially obscured windows. Bill Atkinson did not know this, so he invented regions as the basis of QuickDraw and the Window Manager so that he could quickly draw in covered windows and repaint portions of windows brought to the front."

[_sh]

The 'regions' used in QuickDraw are an amazing (for their time) data structure, a testament to the genius of Bill Atkinson. I strongly recommend reading the patent to see how cool and useful they were to the original Mac windowing system (http://patentdetails.patenttools.com/patent/04622545?searchi... click on the 'download pdf' link in the top left).

Steve Jobs know how important regions were: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...

[_sh]

Obviously I meant 'Steve Jobs knew how important regions were'.

In a semi-related matter, does anyone know of the algorithm Bill used to draw RoundRects 'blisteringly fast'? http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...

[Robin_Message]

I've been intending to write a blog post retrospective on the workings and algorithms of the quick draw library, but regions seemed too big a topic to start with. You've given me an idea though: I'll have have a go at RoundRects first and see if there is any interest.

[zizee]

Ah, excellent stuff. Thanks for the correction and digging that up.