Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CORY.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon
From: dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga in cinema (again)
Message-ID: <8809200649.AA26560@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 20 Sep 88 06:49:57 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 45

:Maybe, maybe not.  OS/9 has been around for a long time on coco's, Atari's,
:pc's etc.  Anyway well a lot of people always talk about multitasking, I
:just don't think it is such a killer feature.  Just look at all the Apple,
:IBM sales.  It seems that most people are willing to live without multitasking
:or settle for a limited form of multitasking.  So while multitasking is a
:definite plus, I doult if it is the reason for people to buy the Amiga over
:something else.   
:                                        Wayne Knapp  

	I would say you are dead wrong here.  It is precisely the demand
for multitasking that has forced Apple and IBM into their premature and
incomplete implementations of it.  If you just think for a short while
you will see why:

	(1) UNIX is moving towards micros... note existance on Amigas, IBMs,
	    and Mac IIs.  UNIX is multitasking.

	(2) Demands being made of most micros these days are getting nearly
	    impossible to implement without multitasking:

	    ethernet on IBM AT's:  slow, undependable, file servers must 
	    essentially be dedicated, incompatible net device assignment
	    (i.e. printer device -> net fails with many applications)

	    token ring: same limitations apply.

	    ethernet/appletalk on a Mac:  file servers must be dedicated,
	    does not support multiple and multiple-automatic(remote) 
	    sessions (having 3 telnet windows does not count... try adding
	    an rwho or finger daemon, eh?)

	    literally hundreds of 'DA's these days on the Mac, IBM, and other
	    micros/oss use hardware interrupts to create their own sort of
	    multitasking (i.e.: background printer spooler) and as such have
	    major incompatibilities with other products which try to use the
	    same trick.

	(3) Multitasking inherently provides a resource-use model which reduces
	    the number of 'badly written programs' by forcing them to recognize
	    that they cannot dandy about the machine as if they owned it.
	    (This might appear to ascribe that it is more difficult to write
	    programs for multitasking machines.  If anything, the reverse is
	    true).

					-Matt