rminnich@udel.EDU (Ron Minnich) (12/23/87)
Who will have the last word on multi-tasking?
the last word on multi-tasking will be given by what sells.
Anybody wanna bet? I can bet. Looking at OS/2, Multifinder, the
sales of the Amiga 500, and so on ... we can be sure that multi-tasking
will be the only way these machines work in a few years. The Atari
will be multi-tasking too i bet ... or it will cease to be.
The personal market has shown itself to be pretty sophisticated.
Windows, graphics, mice, spreadsheets- look at how fast the 'toy machine'
market has picked up on that stuff. Now look at the VM/CMS user interface
or the Unix interface. Then look at hypercard or microfiche filer or
Excel or ... The small computer market appears, to me anyway, to support
innovation better than any other. Unix users were typing 'troff' ten
years ago and many of them still do- while the $<1000 market now
supports pagesetter and who knows what other goodies. So i expect
the innovation-supporting small computer world to move to multi-tasking
as a matter of course. Users will demand it. People will want their
spreadsheets with cells tied to arbitrary processes such as stock market,
gas chromatograph, volt meter, and so on.
Just wait till IBM really starts pushing multi-tasking. Then it
will be the thing everyone has to have, just so they can be as
good as Big Blue.
ron
--
ron (rminnich@udel.edu)