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When Apple Computer Inc. introduced the AV Quadras in August 1993, we had to wait for applications that would take advantage of the technology. Then came the Power Macintosh systems in March, and the best-selling applications are only now becoming available in native versions. Now, Apple has introduced System 7.5, continuing its tradition of introducing powerful, innovative technology with little applications support. Fortunately, Apple has bundled enough features and utilities with 7.5 to make it a worthwhile upgrade.
I tried out System 7.5 on a Centris 650, with and without an Apple PowerPC upgrade card and tested both 16MB and 8MB configurations.
In System 7.5, Apple has made more than 50 changes. Some are carryovers from System 7 Pro, some add functionality that was previously only available through third-party utilities, and some are new features entirely, the most compelling of which is QuickDraw GX.
QUICKDRAW GX. A major upgrade to the QuickDraw component of the Mac OS, QuickDraw GX changes the way you handle printing and graphics operations.
Perhaps the most obvious difference is that you no longer use the Chooser to switch printers. You can now have any printer reside on your desktop as an icon. If you drop a file onto a printer icon, the application that created the file is opened, the file is printed, and the application is closed. Alternatively, you can access your printers directly from the print dialog box. Just open the box from any supporting application, select the desired printer, and print. For multiple printer environments such as ours where we have 33 PostScript printers on our network--this is a much more streamlined approach.
The new Portable Digital Documents (PDD) feature allows documents to be viewed and printed from any QuickDraw GX-equipped Macintosh, regardless of...