🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 28 Jul 1995 14:44:55 -0500, Wade E. Masshardt (wade@macc.wisc.edu) wrote:
: In article <jimenez.18-2507951855310001@bo111monmac.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
: jimenez.18@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu (Joel A. Jimenez) wrote:
: 
: >Okay, just to make a point...  
: >
: >I decided after reading a previous post from the guy running 80 processes
: >on his unix machine to take the challenge of running 80 processes on a
: >mac.  This was going to be quite a challenge for a Performa 475.  The
: >machine is a 25Mhz LC040 with 8 megs of RAM and running RAM doubler for a
: >virtual 16 megs.  (running system 7.1)
: >
: 
: I decided to try the 80 process challenge too.  

    Odd how memories come back.  When I first got my Amiga 1000 in 1985, I
wanted to see what it would do, but since my memory expansion had been
backordered, and I only had 256k, the clock was the only app I could run
in reasonable numbers.  Deluxe Paint, I could only load one of (and that
only with a 16-color screen(, but I could manage dozens of clocks.  It was
interesting for a time, but it quickly lost its thrill.

    Still, in a fit of nostalgia, I decided to see what I could manage on
my Linux box (486-66, 12M ram.)  Pull up an xterm, type a couple of lines,
and presto! 80 oclocks, right?

    Well, no.  I'd forgotten that I had my process limit set to 60.  So
I only got 55 oclocks.  Then I had also forgotten that I had told my
window manager to always keep oclocks on top of everything else.  (I normally
keep one oclock with a transparant background in the top right corner of
the screen.)  Well, first thing you know, I've got these oclocks popping
up all over the place, and everytime one pops to the front, the window
mamaner starts popping all the rest to front, as well.  And given the
fact that oclocks open a round window, clipping is considerably more
expensive than with a rectangular window, and the X display pretty much
froze until all these oclocks had finished fighting each other over which
was going to be on top.

   But they're all up now, and system response seems to be as quick as
ever, unless I try to move a window so it overlaps one of the clocks,
and start the fight again.  I'm having no difficulty with typing into
this terminal program, for example, now that I've got it positioned
so that I can see it.

   But in any case, they've served their purpose, so it's back to the
xterm to kill them off.

   Oops.  Right.  I've maxed out of processes.  I'll close a couple with
the mouse, then:

ps | grep oclock | awk '{print $1}' | xargs kill

    And we're back to normal (except that my oclock is gone now, too.)
Not very exciting, but maybe I'll do it again in 2005, just to keep
in practice.

-- 
the Windows API has done more to retard skill development
than anything since COBOL maintenance.
                           --Larry O'Brien