thewho@portia.Stanford.EDU (Derek Fong) (01/19/90)
Does anyone out there know how to let Stuffit 1.5.1 run in the background while you work on something else with Multifinder? Or is it possible? I saw a friend running a DOS machine where he could the let the archiver run in the background along with a download while he worked on his C compiler. Shouldn't the Mac be able to do a similar thing? (provided the machine has enough RAM...mine should: SE/30 with 5 MB of RAM) Also, what programs do any of you know of that can actually run in the back- ground while you exit to another application? The only ones I have found to work are terminal programs and Excel 2.2. Has anyone had experience letting Mathematica run in the background. I guess my general question/thought is that the machine should be capable of it, but as in the case of Stuffit, there seems no way to get multifinder to switch applications when it is in t the process of archiving or unarchiving a file. Any help or insight would be great, Thanks in advance. ---Derek Fong fong@cive.stanford.edu thewho@portia.stanford.edu
ar4@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Piper Keairnes) (01/19/90)
<8372@portia.Stanford.EDU> thewho@portia.Stanford.EDU (Derek Fong) writes: >Does anyone out there know how to let Stuffit 1.5.1 run in the background >while you work on something else with Multifinder? Or is it possible? In the last menu to the right on the menu bar (sorry, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is called right now) there is the "preferences" option. In the dialog that appears after choosing this menu item, you will notice that there is a mode of background operation. BEWARE! The background operation is very slow if you are used to running Stuffit in the foreground! Just a pet peeve of mine... +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Piper | ar4@mace.cc.purdue.edu | General Consultant | | Keairnes | Macintosh Specialist | Purdue Univ. Computing Center | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
uzun@pnet01.cts.com (Roger Uzun) (01/20/90)
This is one of the main reasons I prefer the Amiga so much over the Mac.
Hopefully in the future the mac will get real multitasking, but for now
Multifinder just does not cut it. All programs should multitask and require
no special effort by the programmer to get them that way. Of course you could
switch to A/UX but does it allow you to run more than 1 mac Application?
Those who feel that MultiFinder is enough, or that multitasking is not
necessary in a home computer, have never tried true multitasking.
-Roger
UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd ucsd nosc}!crash!pnet01!uzun
ARPA: crash!pnet01!uzun@nosc.mil
INET: uzun@pnet01.cts.comlong@mcntsh.enet.dec.com (Richard C. Long) (01/20/90)
In article <3877@mace.cc.purdue.edu>, ar4@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Piper Keairnes) writes... ><8372@portia.Stanford.EDU> thewho@portia.Stanford.EDU (Derek Fong) writes: >>[backgrounding Stuffit] .. >BEWARE! The background operation is very slow if you are used to running >Stuffit in the foreground! Just a pet peeve of mine... I've found it can be noticeably speeded up if you can hide Stuffit's windows somehow, either via the beta MultiFinder, or a "make invisible" FKEY, or whatever. I guess it saves Stuffit all that screen updating... rich
casseres@apple.com (David Casseres) (01/20/90)
In article <1227@crash.cts.com> uzun@pnet01.cts.com (Roger Uzun) writes: > This is one of the main reasons I prefer the Amiga so much over the Mac. > Hopefully in the future the mac will get real multitasking, but for now > Multifinder just does not cut it. All programs should multitask and > require no special effort by the programmer to get them that way.... Sigh. MultiFinder has some shortcomings compared to preemptive multitasking (I guess that's what you mean by "real" multitasking), but this is not one of them. I use numerous Mac programs that were written long before MultiFinder was even discussed, and they multitask just fine under MultiFinder. No special effort was required of the programmers to make this work, because they weren't even _thinking_ about multitasking. > Those who feel that MultiFinder is enough, or that multitasking is not > necessary in a home computer, have never tried true multitasking. Fair enough, but tell me, have you actually tried the Mac? David Casseres Exclaimer: Hey!