dennis%cod@nosc.ARPA (Dennis Cottel) (01/21/87)
I can understand that tape I/O might slow the node down some, but you don't expect the display manager to go dormant. Regardless of what else is going on, I would think that the display manager should have high enough priority to keep the cursor moving, accept and display keystrokes, and the like. The explanation of a single lock for both disk and tape (on the DN3000) doesn't seem to explain why the DM can't keep up. Dennis Cottel Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego, CA 92152 (619) 225-2406 dennis@NOSC.MIL sdcsvax!noscvax!dennis
Erstad@HI-MULTICS.ARPA.UUCP (01/22/87)
The key to remember is that priority only affects cpu utilization. If, in the fractional second you pause for thought, your entire memory is swapped out for some other task (tape, background process, whatever) then even processing a keystroke may well take a couple of disk reads causing extremely 'jerky' behaviour.