peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (05/16/89)
Take this to talk.religion.computers. And since it's not there yet, how about sending me you votes when I call for then come June 1? You can wait, sure.... -- Peter "Have you hugged your wolf today" da Silva `-_-' ...texbell!sugar!peter, or peter@sugar.hackercorp.com 'U`
dan@hp-lsd.HP.COM (Dan Schmelzer) (05/20/89)
> > So what? What advantages does 'true multi-tasking' (by which I assume you mean > pre-emptive multi-tasking) have over Apple's co-operative multi-tasking? Co- > operative multi-tasking has significant user interface advantges over the > pre-emptive kind. > Murat N. Konar Honeywell Systems & Research Center, Camden, MN A BIG difference. Have you ever had an application that had a bug in it, or even a program you were writing and testing lock itself up in an infinite loop or go off looking for a resource it will never find? With true multi-tasking the CPU is interrupted by a hardware timer allowing the OS to decide to give another task a time slice. This means that even though a given program (application) may be hung, other programs may still be usable. Example: I'm editing a document file in one window, and in another window I'm editing, then compiling, then test running my latest whiz-bang print utility I'm designing. Then, Whoops! That last tweak to my utility has caused it to lock up waiting for a printer port that doesn't exist; my printer's on the OTHER port, I just remember. So what do I do? I just select my document edit window and probable save what I'm doing -- hey I didn't want to loose that, and, If I'm confident that my hung program does not pose a threat to the OS, I can open additional new windows and continue working. If I don't know why a program hangs or crashes I'll do what I can to save what else is in progress and reboot for peace of mind. I realize that sometimes errant applications will totally crash the machine. But, if you have an MMU and protection for your OS against misbehaved applications, but DON'T have true multi-tasking your protected OS is of no value. How do you ever get back to the OS from your application? You wind up rebooting your machine in ALL cases!! We humans multi-task, what about our machines? Dan Schmelzer dan@hp-lsd.HP.COM