Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!jade!ucbvax!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!jack!sdeggo!dave From: dave@sdeggo.UUCP (David L. Smith) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Single tasking the wave of the future? Message-ID: <151@sdeggo.UUCP> Date: Sun, 6-Dec-87 20:21:28 EST Article-I.D.: sdeggo.151 Posted: Sun Dec 6 20:21:28 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 12-Dec-87 01:19:24 EST References: <201@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> <388@sdcjove.CAM.UNISYS.COM> <988@edge.UUCP> <1227@sugar.UUCP> Organization: Lazy Programmer's Society of San Diego Lines: 34 In article <1227@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <147@sdeggo.UUCP>, dave@sdeggo.UUCP (David L. Smith) writes: >>I agree with John, however the ideal towards which we are striving is multi- >>tasking operating systems and single-tasking processors. Admit it, don't >>you hate having your processor multi-task? > >Hello, no. Until you have something incredible like 64000 processors in your >box, you're going to find yourself running out of the suckers. If you have >a connection machine on your desk, great! If you've got a transputer, you >lose. What happens when you want to start up that 5th or 9th program and >you've only got 4 or 8 CPUs? Then one of your processors starts to multi-task. Of course you never have enough processors to handle everything, but it would be nice if you did. It's an _ideal_. The question was "Don't you hate having your processor multi-task" and the answers have been "No, because it has to." If it didn't have to would you want it to? Timesharing is a necessary evil, and we use it because we have finite resources. The trend has been to increase these resources and at the point where they become effectively infinite (if you have, say 256 processors in a work station with a _very_ fast I/O system) the number of times time-sharing would come into play would be very few. The same arguments apply to virtual memory. Do you like swapping, paging and the rest of those fun things? I don't, but I have to live with them because I can't afford 4 gigabytes of RAM. (Or 4 gig of disk for that matter). Just because it's necessary doesn't mean you have to like it. -- David L. Smith {sdcsvax!man,ihnp4!jack!man, hp-sdd!crash, pyramid}!sdeggo!dave man!sdeggo!dave@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu I don't need no steenkin' quote!