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From: gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Single tasking the wave of the future?
Message-ID: <3445@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Wed, 2-Dec-87 05:24:15 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.3445
Posted: Wed Dec  2 05:24:15 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Dec-87 12:48:52 EST
References: <201@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> <388@sdcjove.CAM.UNISYS.COM> <988@edge.UUCP> <2581@mmintl.UUCP>
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 24

> Another trend...                     ...is that towards individual
> (single-user) computers.  The future of multi-tasking on such machines is
> very much in question...
> -- 
> Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
> Ashton-Tate          52 Oakland Ave North         E. Hartford, CT 06108

Does anybody seriously believe this?  I don't.

All the little single chip micros in microwave ovens are running realtime
code; depending on internal structure, this could be single threaded polling,
one task with lots of interrupts, or many tasks.

99% of the rest of the computers will be "general purpose" and all of
them will be running multitasking.  Whether they call it "TSR and steal
interrupts" or they call it "fork()" or "multifinder", it will be
multitasking.  Mr.  Adams, who works at a major MSDOS software house,
may be confused by the fact that on MSDOS you have to write your own
scheduler and task switching to get multitasking.  That hasn't stopped
everyone from doing it, given the obvious benefits of multitasking; it
just makes it 30 times as hard.
-- 
{pyramid,ptsfa,amdahl,sun,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu			  gnu@toad.com
		"Watch me change my world..." -- Liquid Theatre