[net.micro.atari] Multitasking on the Amiga

mroddy@enmasse.UUCP (Mark Roddy) (08/19/85)

> Not true.  Programs can be arbitrarily large (since addresses are relocated
> at process startup time) and they don't have to be well behaved
> (since address faults, etc are trapped on a per-process basis).
> 

Well I for one don't see how either of these assertions can be true.

1) Programs can't be arbitrarily large, they have to fit into what is left
of memory, a variable dependent on what happens to be loaded at the time.
This is not the same as a multiprocessing system that allows any combination
of processes to coexist, limiting only the number of concurrent processes.

2) They do have to be well behaved. This is far more serious a problem with
the base register relocation scheme used in the Amiga. There is no way to 
prevent task_1 from writing all over task_2. Without the hardware protection
offered by an MMU, you are left with trust as the only protection between
the address space of individual tasks. I must assume that the address faults
mentioned above are writing off the end of known space type faults.

> I got this information from one of the people who designed the Amiga's
> multitasking operating system.  All in all, I was very impressed
> by the number of things that they got right.

These people are not objective.
-- 
						Mark Roddy
						Net working,
						Just reading the news.

					(harvard!talcott!panda!enmasse!mroddy)