🚀 go-pugleaf

fmlin@terapin.com (Frank M. Lin) writes:

>I have some questions regarding GNO and SIT.  I think this should be included
>in the FAQ.

>What kind of applications can gno multi-task?  And what kind of applications
>can SIT multi-task.

  GNO multitasks just about anything, by design.  However, because the
System tools were _not_ designed that way, there's a limit of 1 desktop
application under GNO (but you can run as many Unix-shell-style apps as
you like, with or without a desktop application- re: GSI NDA).

  Switch-It! doesn't multitask per-se.. it allows you to have several
applications loaded and switch between them very quickly (but manually).
Reason being that Switch-It! has to copy about 64K of memory on a switch.
Try doing that 60 times a second and you'll why GNO does not multitask
desktop apps like XWindows or MultiFinder.

>I would also like to some _minimum_ support for P8 with GNO.  I think many of
>us can agree that PT3 is simply the best telecom program available for the GS
>right now ( overall ).  I would like to be able to run it when I get GNO.

  I'd like to as well, but there are major problems with something like
that. The major one is that GS/OS and ProDOS 8 occupy the same memory
when loaded (not programs, but the operating systems themselves).

>Since GNO can terminate and resume processes, I see no problem of terminating
>processes, run P8 stuff, return to the shell, and then resume the processes.  
>If would be even nicer if Greg would make PT3 more gs/os aware...  lowercase
>support, better yet, FST support.  Break the 63.5k editor limit.

  GNO can _shut down_, and then run a P8, and return to GNO, but GNO can't
simply pause processes and run P8 because programs like Proterm and
AppleWorks 3.0 assume they have free run of memory; they'll overwrite
anything in GS memory whether they really use it or not.

>I heard that SIT includes stack swapping; so direct page don't really run out.
>How does GNO handle the limited bank 0 space?  Will stack swapping be included
>in v1.1?  Does GNO context switch prefixes too?

  GNO won't be stack swapping like SIT does; that's about 20K of copies
(well, make that 40K, 20K in and 20K out) 60 times each second.
GNO does in fact context switch prefixes, but it can simply move a
pointer for those, because I rewrote a significant portion of GS/OS's
application interface to allow that.

-- 
 Jawaid Bazyar              |   Ask me about the GNO Multitasking Environment
 Procyon, Inc.              |   for the Apple IIgs!   
 bazyar@cs.uiuc.edu         |   P.O Box 620334
 --Apple II Forever!--      |   Littleton, CO 80162-0334   (303) 933-4649