Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Need info on multitasking capabilities on the mac
Message-ID: <9035@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 21 Nov 89 19:05:13 GMT
References: <9775@zodiac.ADS.COM> <39178@srcsip.UUCP> <36687@lanl.gov> <5267@internal.Apple.COM> <74117@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <2352@draken.nada.kth.se>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 23

In article <2352@draken.nada.kth.se> d88-jwa@nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) writes:
>As long as the machine runs several applications simultaneously,
>I don't think this is much to discuss, actually, so why don't we
>move on to more interesting things, like... PROTECTED MEMORY !
>(Which, by the way, is a requirement for "That other kind of"
>multitasking 8)

Despite the smiley, this point deserves answering.  Protected memory is
not a requirement for asynchronous (or time-sliced or pre-emptive)
multitasking.  It's very nice to have with *any* kind of multitasking,
or even with single-tasking systems with a division between OS and user
task, but it's by no means necessary.  It's just a good thing for
system reliability, particularly on development systems where code in
progress is very likely to sometimes step all over the OS or other
tasks.  Unfortunately, Apple doesn't think it's important, despite
near-unanimity in the developer community to the contrary.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

"When errors are found in old research, the relevant theories are
 re-examined.  When facts contradict theory, theory gets dumped.  Is
 that why the NLP people are unwilling to research their facts?"
	-- Jerry Hollombe on sci.psychology