🚀 go-pugleaf

english@primenet.com (Lawson English) wrote:

>So, shoehorn in multitasking on top of a single-tasking OS without 
>breaking previous applications in the process and without requiring a 
>complete rewrite of the entire ToolBox and OS while you are at it.

So, due to previous lack of foresight, the Mac's multitasking is now
"good" because it was _difficult_ to make it any better?

Destroys a lot of criticisms for Microsoft's compromises had to make
with 95, doesn't it?  Don't blame them- it was "hard" to overcome all
that old baggage.  But they will get the flames, because they
_created_ that baggage that they had to work around- as did Apple.

Would you apply the same logic to say, Intel?  When a friend asks you
which chip is better, would you say "Well, the 604 beats the best
Pentium out there.  But remember, Intel has a lot of legacy code to
support, so it's a lot harder for them.  So I say give 'em a break.
Buy a Pentium."

(Comments about OS/2 being able to do it while remaining compatible
don't apply, of course.)


>I don't believe that I have ever "blasted" Windows 95. When asked, I say 
>that I understand that it is quite good -better than the Mac's OS and 
>interface in some ways.

Sorry then, lumped you in with someone else.  

>: The Macs multitasking is "poor" because virtually every other OS that
>: reports to mulitask does it far better.

>The Mac's multitasking is poor because it was a quick and dirty fix to an 
>underlying design flaw that will require a rewrite of virtually all 
>routines in the Mac toolbox, graphics API and OS to correct.

>The Mac's multitasking is excellent because despite being such a kludge, 
>it works with all Macs built since 1985, and broke almost no 
>existing programs.

>As I said, if Apple does such poor work that you can criticize them for 
>everything that they've ever done, let's see you do better, given the 
>constraints that the folks that did Multifinder had.

We know the problems.  However, other manufacturers _have_ been able
to provide semi-smooth multitasking without breaking a lot of older
apps- OS/2 and Win95 for examples.  

And no, I couldn't do better.  We're back to this again, are we?  That
argument simply doesn't hold water due to the fact we all criticise
things we can't do all the time- and likely, you have as well.  We
critique them in _comparison_ to others.  I'm sure if the Mac's System
7 was the first incarnation of multitasking on the planet, we would be
hailing it as a breakthrough.  But far older machines and OS's have
done it far better, and modern OS's have been able to overcome the
hurdles of their own lack of ingenuity in creating their
single-tasking OS's.