cory@three.MV.COM (Cory Kempf) (06/06/90)
seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan) writes: >Ok, how about this: a single-tasking "OS" is a true OS if a program written >for it can be moved to a multi-tasking version of said OS without breaking >in anyway. That is, if it worked before, it should work now. >I don't believe the Mac does this properly Sorry, you loose. When the Mac went from single finder to multifinder, most (the last figure that I saw was 93%) applications did not break. The applications that did were, in general, ones that decided to shave corners (well, *I KNOW* that this information is stored here... why should I bother with that routine that Apple wrote? I can save 30 cycles). As to the original question, my OS class (and Peterson/Silberschatz) defined an operating system as a program that provides an interface to hardware and manages (the sharing of) resources +C -- Cory Kempf I do speak for the company (sometimes). Three Letter Company 603 883 2474 email: cory@three.mv.com, harvard!zinn!three!cory