gl8f@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) (11/15/89)
In article <12430011@acf5.NYU.EDU> mitsolid@acf5.NYU.EDU (Thanasis Mitsolides) writes: [ responding to claim that compatibility is tough...] > >OS/2 286 allows one DOS compatibility window within OS/2. >OS/2 386 will allow any number of DOS compatibility windows within OS/2. Actually, these compatibility boxes aren't fully compatible. Among other things, they drop fast interrupts. And since most applications using the serial port have their own drivers instead of using the BIOS drivers, this is a big problem. The compatibility box also has a big advantage that comes from an earlier limitation. A PC expects to have 640k of memory. An ST can have up to 4 megs. So if your single-tasking program is making the stupid assumption that nobody else can allocate memory... OS/2 can fix it by giving it the full 640k, while a multitasking TOS can't. Remember Juggler on the Mac? It had an interesting solution to the problem, but you had to give it a hint of how much memory to tell each program it had. >>Does anyone know how the hell Macintosh managed to make all their programs >>work with multidesk (or was multitasking always supported on the Mac? >I am not flaming you, but it IS kommon knowledge. With HARD WORK! Actually, they did it be slowly changing and adding to the "rules" for writing applications. Haven't you noticed the occasional screams when a new release of the Mac OS breaks existing programs from big-name software houses? However, most Mac programs have good support and the companies immediately go out and fix them. If Atari produced a multitasking system that required a bunch of litle changes to almost all programs, how much chaos would result? ------ Greg Lindahl gl8f@virginia.edu Astrophysicists for Choice.