🚀 go-pugleaf

wilcafe@mail.coretech.com writes:
 > Myth #1 Copland will have preemptive multitasking.
 >   Apple has decided to phase preemptive multitasking accross 2 major
 > versions of system software. This is to ensure compatability. You will
 > have to wait until Gershwin for completely preemptive multitasking, but by
 > then, all the programs will be writen to take advantage of it and will be
 > instantly compatible.

Kernel tasks will be fully preemptive... things like File Manager, Networking,
File Sharing, FTPd (Peter?), and even printing. The things running in the "Blue
Box", or compatibility layer, will be cooperatively multitasked against each
other (and preemptive as a whole against the rest of the machine).

The biggest reason for this is that Quickdraw (and most of the Toolbox) is not
reentrant. There are a wide variety of reasons for not fixing this in Copland,
but I think the biggest is compatibility for another year or 2. (Which is *not*
to say a well written program couldn't keep its underlying engine as a preemptive
kernel task, so that even if the Blue Box dies the user could just restart the
interface part and the engine would still be running!)

Matt