Xref: utzoo comp.sys.atari.st:18432 comp.os.minix:6715 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu!kaa.eng.ohio-state.edu!rob From: rob@kaa.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st,comp.os.minix Subject: Re: Multitasking on the ST Message-ID: <2794@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu> Date: 10 Aug 89 06:01:35 GMT References: <8908021826.AA05333@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <15627@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <652@opal.tubopal.UUCP> <15706@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <666@opal.tubopal.UUCP> <15780@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Sender: news@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu Reply-To: rob@kaa.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere) Organization: Ohio State Univ, College of Engineering Lines: 23 In article <666@opal.tubopal.UUCP> alderaan@tubopal.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) writes: > And, If I'd decide to write a real nasty program to run under Minix, >the chance is 99% that I crash the WHOLE system with this program. Myself, >I am a Minix user and I think I know what I'm talking about. I'll gladly concur until you supply evidence to the contrary. :-) > Conclusion : Minix is a very nice software to use it for learning about >time sharing, but it's useless for a *secure* (as I said above) every day >multi(tasking|user) operation because it is definetely not reliable enough. >You WILL have this problem with all multi tasking systems running on an >unmodified ST. Yup. You will also have the _exact_same_ security problem with any task switcher on an unmodified ST. At the very least the taskswitcher must keep part of itself in memory. I can trash that from my program. You will have the same problem with a RAM-disk. This is not an argument against multitasking and for task switching because it applies with equal force to both. SR