Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!network!ucsd!ames!amdahl!pacbell!pbhya!dbsuther From: dbsuther@PacBell.COM (Daniel B. Suthers) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Multitasking on the ST Message-ID: <29201@pbhya.PacBell.COM> Date: 14 Aug 89 08:10:39 GMT References: <8908021826.AA05333@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <15627@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1989Aug4.173233.8259@sj.ate.slb.com> <376@eagle.wesleyan.edu> <63138@linus.UUCP> Reply-To: dbsuther@PacBell.COM (Daniel B. Suthers) Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA Lines: 34 In article <63138@linus.UUCP> rachamp@mbunix (Champeaux) writes: >From The Amiga ROM Kernel manual: > > Every task has an assigned priority and tasks are scheduled to use the > processor on a priority basis. The highest priority ready task is selected > and receives processing until: > [TEXT DELETED] > Task scheduling is preemptive in nature. The running task may lose the > processor at nearly any moment by being displaced by another more urgent > task. Later, when the preempted task regains the processor, it continues > where it left off. > >When a higher priority task becomes active, the running task is immediately >interrupted. After reading this a question popped into my head. If you are downloading in the back ground (it seems the most popular multi-task task) and running a action game in the foreground, do you set the download process to the highest priority to avoid losing data or do you just put up with longer download times and connect times so your joy-stick will be responsive? While I'm at it... What is a "ray trace" that most amiga users seem to want to generate them, and are willing to wait 2 or 3 days for the output??? The ray traces I've done have always completed over-night, and that's longer than I wish to wait for a pretty drawing. My idea of great uses for multi-tasking agrees with the UNIX system. Utilities such as UUCP, LP and cron are great. I almost never compile in the back-ground as it adds just that much more time before it's finished, and I find myself constantly checking to see if it's finished yet. Dan Suthers, Analyst, Pacific Bell