Path: utzoo!censor!geac!jtsv16!uunet!mcsun!mcvax!hp4nl!phigate!philmds!leo
From: leo@philmds.UUCP (Leo de Wit)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Rebuttal time
Message-ID: <1081@philmds.UUCP>
Date: 31 Aug 89 05:46:08 GMT
References: <8908252144.AA27005@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <123950@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Reply-To: leo@philmds.UUCP (Leo de Wit)
Organization: Philips I&E DTS Eindhoven
Lines: 51

In article <123950@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes:
    []
|Why can't someone just pipe up and say "I'm using a _window system based_
                        ^^^^
Funny you use the word 'pipe'; it is also relevant to this discussion in a
way you probably didn't suspect.

|multitasking OS right now, and I a) don't like it, or b) am not using it
|as one nor do I ever use it as one."
|
|The keys are that you have to have a _window based_ UI because single
|interface terminal UI's are generally not flexible enough for effective
|use of multitasking ...

Depends on how well designed the multitasking and the rest of the O.S.
were; for instance, I wouldn't call a csh in a BSD environment 'not
flexible enough'. And my experience is that a good windowing system
should be used on a large screen (to add another point to the
discussion).

|                ... and there has to be other programs that _know_ your
|OS is multitasking so that they can take advantage of it if they choose
|to.

No. It is nice to have multitasking on the program level, but it is not
inherently necessary to be useful. A good example is the pipe concept
in UNIX (there it is 8-): two processes communicating through a pipe
don't have to know they read from/write to a pipe, yet the O.S. decides
for them whose turn it is. The multitasking is, so to speak,
transparantly for the application (of course there has to be some means
to set up the pipes and the processes, e.g. by a shell).

|    These two requirements eliminate every single "micro" (except the
|Amiga) from the test.

Hm, Amiga owner 8-) ?

    []
|Lets see if we can find those silent individuals who can present the
|opposing cases. These would be the Amiga user who is saying :
|	"This multitasking stinks, every time I turn around it has
|	 made my life miserable."
|
|and the ST/Mac/PC user who is saying :
|	"You know, if only I had a multitasking OS, this is what 
|	 I could accomplish."

Compiles in the background, a file being printed, while reading netnews ...
Wow!

    Leo.