[net.micro.amiga] Bugs and system protection

cc1@ucla-cs.UUCP (06/04/86)

First, the bug.
In 1.1, when you move a window, resize it, etc. and the program is
supposed to refresh it, the pointer sticks and will not move. It is still
being read as it will do everything you asked for when it finishes
refreshing, but it waits until finished.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that the program will ever get any
CPU time.

This also occurs (occasionally) with menu's; not sure exactly when yet.

Proposed bug fix #1: Temporarily raise the process priority
proposed bug fix #2: Don't wait for the process to finish.

Bug #2:
When a task gets held, it is wasting all that memory, some of which
the system knows about and can recover

Proposed fix: Replace the 'Retry' (which does nothing) with 'Partial
recovery', which would recover all the resources the system knows
about.

Now, system security.

Please, if not in 1.2, then in 1.3. Intuition/dos/possibly exec should
keep a record of which addresses are valid. In other words, if I open
a file handle, that address should be added to a system list.
It would then be checked at every use.

This is not that much overhead--Use a tree, sorted by address.
Each type (file handles, window pointers, etc) would have their
own tree.

What should be checked? Any pointer returned by the os, excluding
exec's memory routines (possibly excluding all of exec, if you think
the overhead is too much. But don't exclude the task structure address,
please).

Not a "bug", nor a "feature":
Dos should catch the addtask() vector, and when it is called,
update its process information so the new task gets the same i/o
abilities as the old process. The idea here is that a process can
be made of several co-operating, equally powerful tasks.
(no special privleges for the parent task).

Comment on earlier proposal: Regarding the color changes for active/inactive
windows: Make this settable from both preferences (the default), and from
workbench's SPECIAL menu. Reason: Some programs are opening a small window
for RAW: input, and using the same old window for output. The output window
is not selected, but it should not have the colors changed.

			Michael Gersten
p.s. Dos=dos.library. Intuition=graphics libraries. Exec=exec.lib.
-- 
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