🚀 go-pugleaf

tlang@freeway.DIALix.oz.au (Tony Langdon) wrote:

:It's 19 Aug 97  05:40,
:We'll return to sbirch@le.klever.net and All's
:discussion of Conned by progress - was Re: Suggestions please - Office for Lin
[snip]
: sb> The same thing happened when the PeeSee first started to multi-task.
: sb> The programmers of the day really believed they had invented something
: sb> new.  Sigh.
:
:I think that _was_ something, given the hardware of the day, though
:there were 8 bit micros capable of quite good multitasking many years
:ago.

 If you can find one, take a look at the software manual for Zilog's
"RIO" OS (used on their MCZ-1/20 around 1978). That had all the hooks
for interrupt-driven IO with full multi-tasking built right in. True,
the feature was rarely used, but it was there, and worked. I once
wrote a background-print utility for it: a trivial task indeed, given
the level of support available.

 To really push the envelope, try an even older machine, the Singer
System-10. Late 1960's: 74xx gates and ferrite core memory. That beast
did 20 users multi-tasking, with the multi-task control built right
into a minimal set of hardware. A true education in getting a quart
into a pint pot.

--  Dave Brooks <http://www.iinet.net.au/~daveb>
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