🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <8155@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes:
>>In article <2027@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk> pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee) writes:
>>>What I am questioning is TRUE
>>>multi-tasking.  I've got no argument with 'carousels' of suspended programs,
>>>and no problem with resident background interrupt handlers, such as print
>>>spoolers.
>I'm still waiting to see if someone can come up with a use for TRUE
>multitasking that a typical home user would find very handy but that
>cannot be satisfied by a simple 'carousel' approach. There probably
>are some, especially with message-passing, etc., but none have been
>posted yet (except for people waiting for their compilers to finish --
>they just need faster integrated compilers, though :)

Ok, you asked for it .... here's my argument.

Actually I've got two.  The first being background print spooler 
type programs.  These are handled so much more cleanly on a properly
multi-tasking machine than they are on a hacked-over single task
DOS ... And yes, I know that background print spooler gadgets can
run on single task DOS's ... I've seen 'em in CP/M, RT-11, Mess-DOS,
and many many others.  But I've never been convinced that they
ever ran cleanly.

Anyway ... my main argument ...

I'm thinking ahead some time into the future when we'll have
ISDN running everywhere ... In order to handle network communications
cleanly we'll need to have multi-tasking.  And this isn't just
communications as in start up a terminal program to call up
a mainframe at work.  This is also things like mail daemons
and such that recieve e-mail while you're asleep (or away
or whatever).

For right now?  Well, how about killing run-away processes?
It's real nice to be able to pop up another window, do something
like a "ps" to see what's going on, and kill things which need
to be killed.  Oh, and I don't know for certain if Amiga can
do what I just said -- my 2000 hasn't arrived yet :-).  But
my CoCoIII with OS-9 could do exactly that.  (and I did exactly
that more than once).  On a single task machine you simply reboot
the machine.  Well, that's sorta messy.  But also by rebooting
you lose all sorts of information you'd have been able to gain
if you could only do a "ps".

In short.  I will never consider buying a single task machine.


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<---- David Herron -- The E-Mail guy            <david@ms.uky.edu>
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