From chemistry-request@ccl.net Thu Apr  2 00:43:36 1992
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 92 23:24:58 -0500
From: bak@isadora.albany.EDU (Brian A. Kell)
Subject: Re: Movie format
To: chemistry@ccl.net

>  Apple's Quicktime certainly seems like a candidate.  However, I have
>  some questions for discussion:
> 
>  -Are there any other formats already in use?  Widely used?  Widely
>  implemented?

I believe that the Amiga computer has a "movie" format that has been
in use for some time by Amiga afficionados.  It's the same idea as
QuickTime, but perhaps more rudimentary.  I don't remember what it's
called.

In regards to an earlier posting (I forget the author) which concerned
a fear of "forcing" the Macintosh environment on someone by choosing
the QuickTime standard, I would just like to point out that choosing a
data format standard does not necessarily force the use of a
particular hardware platform.  Notable examples in the personal
computer world are PostScript and PICT (originally in the Macintosh,
but now ubiquitous on MS-DOS, Windows, Unix, etc. platforms), and the
GIF image format (developed by Compuserve, but now in widespread use).
As I understand it, the QuickTime format is being made publically
available, so it should be just as easy to write MS-DOS- or Unix-based
QuickTime viewers as Macintosh ones.

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Brian A. Kell       Biosym Technologies, Inc.       bak@biosym.com
Disclaimer: The above comments are my own.
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