Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: My last comments about ST multitasking
Message-ID: <7678@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 16 Aug 89 16:57:43 GMT
References: <8908160401.AA01009@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 33

in article <8908160401.AA01009@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, 01659@AECLCR.BITNET (Greg Csullog) says:

> Look, I can format floppies from within all my ST applications, 

But you have to either have the Format command available as a desk accessory
(don't know if it's possible?), or each individual program must worry about
including a disk format option.  Certainly if that's important to the market,
most will, but it's still something a program's author shouldn't have to
worry about -- debugging the real application should occupy all their time.
Plus, when I format a floppy, I can click back to my WordProcessor or 
Terminal or whatever else I have running, while the format takes place.

> I can run a word processor, a spreadsheet and a painting program at the same
> time and switch between them. 

But you can't have the word processor ask the data base to find you client 
files, extract some data, pass it to the spreadsheet, generate a color 
image, then pass that to the paint program for conversion to black and
while, before being inserted into your word processor.  You need several
programs active for that kind of interaction.

> BUT, when I want to crank out dbMAN reports from my databases (one is 
> almost 4 megabytes), I don't want to slow down my 68000 by using another 
> application at all. I want the dbMAN stuff out asap.

DataBase stuff is often disk intensive.  If my DB program is thumbing through
100 megs of database to prepare a report, I'll likely have lots of CPU time
left for other stuff.

-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: D-DAVE H     BIX: hazy
           Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it