SuperPaint (Macintosh)

For the pioneering graphics program and framebuffer developed at Xerox PARC, see SuperPaint.

SuperPaint

Developer(s)	Silicon Beach Software
Operating system	System 4- System 6 System 7
Type	Bitmap and vector-based image editing
License	Proprietary

SuperPaint was a graphics program capable of both bitmap painting and vector drawing simultaneously. It was originally written by William Snider, published by Silicon Beach Software and originally released in 1986 for the Apple Macintosh. William Snider 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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.

External links

• SuperPaint 3.5 review - Feb 1994
• TidBITS, SuperPaint 3.0 review - March 1992
• a screenshot from SuperPaint version 1
• The Vintage Mac Museum: 1-bit Screenshot of SuperPaint