dorourke@polyslo.UUCP (David O'Rourke) (06/10/88)
In article <46100157@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: >That may be true on the usual MAC OS, but it sure isn't true in general. >Most other companies have some form of multitasking for their main operating >system (not counting Unix variants.) The IBM PC, for example, in addition >to Unix and OS/2 which are intrinsically multitasking, has Desqview >and Windows 386. Both of these are genuine, unabashed multitaskers. They >are restricted only by screen-access conflicts; Windows 386 will MultiTasking is relativly new in the personal computer world, Windows & the OS's that you mention weren't availible until about 1987. And even though their have been Multi-tasking system they have yet to become "standard" on personal computers. Also OS/2 has yet to produce lots of Multi-Tasking software for the personal computers. The summary is that Mutli-tasking is still new in the personal computer arena and will be for a least a year, right now I would esitimate that 80-90% of the MS-Dos world is running MS-Dos and not one of it's MT substites, and many of the Mutli-Tasking alternatives have problems on the clone machines due to some hardware differences. So I would say it's true in general, in general personal computers don't do Multi-Tasking yet. Just because something's availble doesn't mean it get used. And many of the MS-Dos substitues you mention don't support child processes, virtual memory which is necessary for running more that one process, you can do it is physical memory, but it's too much of a pain, VM is needed to really allow MT to become popular. Like I said before Multi-Tasking isn't common. You also stated that other companies had MT stubstitues for their computers, well last time I checked IBM doesn't make DesqView or Window's 386, so these are third party OS's that have to be purchased in addition to the basic non multitasking OS provided with the personal computer. Until Multi-Tasking OS's get distributed with the computer out of the box they won't become standard, and that really hasn't happened yet. It will happen, and it needs to happen, but for about another year I think personal computers will continue to be single threaded machines. But with things like OS/2 and A/UX and upgrades to the Multi-Finder I'm sure multi-tasking will become common on personal computers. -- David M. O'Rourke Disclaimer: I don't represent the school. All opinions are mine!