Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!uhccux!yuan
From: yuan@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Yuan 'Hacker' Chang)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Multitasking revisited
Message-ID: <4567@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 15 Aug 89 09:34:29 GMT
References: <8908041840.AA00412@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <4522@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <10977@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: yuan@uhccux.UUCP (Yuan 'Hacker' Chang)
Organization: Univ. of Barbarians.  Honolulu, Hawaii
Lines: 34

In article <4522@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> yuan@uhccux.UUCP (That's me!) writes:
>	Alright!  8)  If I want to run spell-checking on a document in
>my word processor, heck, re-write the word processor so that it
>runs in the background.  After all, I don't need a full blown
>multitasking environment for something as simple as spell-checking in
>the background.  
>		[same for database, spreadsheet, and CAD]

In article <10977@watcgl.waterloo.edu> wsflinn@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Scott Flinn) writes:
-
-In fact, since this discussion began, I have carefully monitored my usage
-of multitasking while using the multivarious UNIX boxes around here, and
-I can honestly say that, since Greg Csullog's original article first
-appeared, I HAVE NOT BENEFITTED FROM MULTITASKING.  I am doing task
-SWITCHING like its going out of style, but I just can't keep up with
-more than a couple of things.

	I didn't say that I want to run a database, a spreadsheet, a CAD
program, and a word processor ALL at the same time.  In fact, I don't see
how you got the idea that I'm adding fuel to the multitasking vs. task-
switching war.  8(
	In the original article to which I was following up to, the author
was wondering why a full-blown multitasking system should be necessary,
when you could find programs that push themselves to the background.  What
I was trying to point out was that user programs do not have to know about
being in a multitasking/switching system, because the system takes care of
the details.  Think what happens if TOS doesn't provide file services for
user programs, and each single program must handle raw disk I/O in order to
use a disk drive.  
-- 
Yuan Chang 				      "What can go wrong, did"
UUCP:      {uunet,ucbvax,dcdwest}!ucsd!nosc!uhccux!yuan
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