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From: rachamp@mbunix.mitre.org (Richard A. Champeaux)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Multitasking revisited
Message-ID: <62826@linus.UUCP>
Date: 7 Aug 89 13:08:00 GMT
References: <8908041840.AA00412@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: rachamp@mbunix (Champeaux)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, Mass.
Lines: 31

In article <8908041840.AA00412@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> 01659@AECLCR.BITNET (Greg Csullog) writes:
>Some netters replied to my first sermon on multitasking with the classical
>response about doing something else while downloading files. Hell, you do
>not need a multitasking environment to do this, just get a hold of one of
>the telecom packages on the market that allows backgound file transfers.
>
>You don't need a full blown multitasking environment for something as simple
>as file transfers in the background!


The point is that with an operating system that supports multi-tasking, you
don't need special software to accomplish these tasks.  Someone sent me mail
telling me that they could do the things I mentioned with well written
software.  Well, if your OS multi-tasks, you can do it with ALL your software,
not just the well written ones.  Most of what I use on my Amiga is PD software.
I can't imagine that a PD author would take the time to put in all of the 
tricks "well written software" do to emulate a multi-tasking enviroment.
On the Amiga, I can spawn off a child task with less than 10 lines of code.
After that it's running indepently; I don't have to take care of the task
switching.  I can then communicate with it through global structures, or 
more properly, with the Amiga's message passing system.

By the way, I'm using the Amiga as an example to say "Multi-tasking is the
best", I'm not trying to use multi-tasking as an example to say "The Amiga
is the best."

Anyways, as far as multi-tasking goes; don't knock it 'til you've tried it.

Rich Champeaux  (rachamp@mbunix.mitre.org)

"Hey Mikey!  He likes it!"