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From: koreth@panarthea.sun.com (Steven Grimm)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Multitasking on the ST
Summary: It's great for techies, but...
Message-ID: <34027@grapevine.uucp>
Date: 2 Aug 89 18:57:27 GMT
References: <8908021826.AA05333@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: news@grapevine.uucp
Reply-To: koreth (Steven Grimm)
Organization: Sun Microsystems Federal, Milpitas, CA
Lines: 40

In article <8908021826.AA05333@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> 01659@AECLCR.BITNET (Greg Csullog) writes:
>Jumping between apps is OK on the ST. Running multiple, CPU intensive apps
>is silly.

I think people will not use multitasking much at home for a long time.  The
reason is simple.  Most people, especially those who aren't especially computer
literate, only use highly interactive programs.  You can only interact with
one program at a time.  Multitasking is great for running a compile in the
background while you edit a source file, but how many people want to leave
their game running (as opposed to suspended) while they go word process for
a while?

Multitasking will catch on in a very limited way in homes.  Print spoolers
and little "clock in the corner" programs are current examples of the sorts
of things that home users will want to do with multitasking.

Task *switching*, on the other hand, is very useful.  I have several friends
with Amigas, and they mostly use its multitasking as a fancy task-switching
system - push the word processor off the bottom of the screen to go play a
game for a while, or whatever.  I think they're probably typical of most
Amiga owners.

This may or may not change in the future, as people become more familiar with
computers and applications become more intelligent, and can thus operate with
less human intervention.  The fact that technically-oriented people tend to
actually use multitasking makes me think that it will probably be used more
at home as time goes by.

Of course, this doesn't really justify leaving multitasking out of your
computer.  Even if the home users almost never know it's there, it won't
HURT them to have it, and you'll make your developers a lot happier.

(I still miss it on the ST.  I *am* a techie, after all.  Now that I'm more
or less gainfully employed, I should go out and buy RTX, or finish the
multitasking stuff I was working on way back when...)

---
This message is a figment of your imagination.  Any opinions are yours.
Steven Grimm		Moderator, comp.{sources,binaries}.atari.st
sgrimm@sun.com		...!sun!sgrimm