ralph@mit-atrp.UUCP (Amiga-Man) (08/14/87)
In article <3632@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> wetter@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Pierce T. Wetter) writes: > Presently, I am running on a multitasking system and I acutally wish it >wasn't since it annoys me to have to wait while the computer catches up with >my typing. Additionally, because of the large quantities of information which It sounds like the system you use is implemented poorly. I *Always* multi-task on my Amiga, usually running a system performance monitor, a screen blanker, a terminal emulator/communicator and an editor. And my typing is never slowed down enough as to get behind even one character. I can see the round robin switching occur when the emulator needs to put up a whole screen and I'm running some other CPU intensive thing. For instance sometimes I run a ray tracer or mandelbrot in the background at reduced priority. It never affects my other actions(I have 2.5meg). This is the vital part: to set the priorities right. I am never displeased if I set things up right ! These days you'd have to pry away the multi-tasking from my "cold dead fingers" :-).... (I also use a crusty PDP 11/45 with UNIX and it has been tuned well also). Many folk are just starting to understand and properly use multi-tasking. > InterTask communication in a graphical interface? Not practical for >two programs to communicate with each other that way. However, if a program I have seen several examples of *graphical* programs which work better and are easier to write using interprocess communication. A friend of mine implemented a set of musical tools which each ran as a seperate intercommunicating processes. It is a marvel. You only need to run those components that you need at the moment. And as new ones start up they inform the others. And on the Amiga the whole thing runs fast enough to play real-time music. Components include: a tape recorder/ player icon, a synthesizer, a midi converter, a waveform displayer, etc.. Thin kof the many other application that could operate this way.... >FLAME ON > I notice in the message header that you are posting to both the amiga >and mac newsgroups. Why? If you are a Mac user why are you bothering the >amiga owners with mac news? if you are an amiga user why are you posting >mac news since you probably don't know enough about the mac for your comments >FLAME OFF Well....I didn't mind hearing that there are attempts at multitasking on other machines. So some information about it here in Amiga-land is O.K. with me at least. Heck, multitasking is one of the big advantages of the Amiga. So its nice to hear that other companies agree as well. I suspect that *you* may not know alot about the Amiga though. You may want to test drive one sometime and see what you can achieve with multi-tasking in a graphics environment. The possibilities are just begining to be used. I'm just posting this to Amiga land....I'm sure the Mac-folks have heard enough about this issue. No need to waste their net bandwidth, so I'm going to *mail* a copy to the poster I quoted to see that he gets it, but not all of Mac land. I think I'll invent "Multi-Ralphing", Ralph, Ralph and Ralph.