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From: billkatt@mondo.engin.umich.edu (billkatt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Need info on multitasking capabilities on the mac
Message-ID: <1989Nov28.180020.4641@caen.engin.umich.edu>
Date: 28 Nov 89 18:00:20 GMT
References: <6432@tank.uchicago.edu> <TIME.89Nov27154310@oxtrap.oxtrap.UUCP> <1574@intercon.com> <14002@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Sender: news@caen.engin.umich.edu (USENET News System)
Reply-To: billkatt@mondo.engin.umich.edu (billkatt)
Organization: Computer Aided Engineering Network (CAEN), University of Michigan
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In article <14002@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> ghe@nucthy.PHYSICS.ORST.EDU (Guangliang He) writes:
>In article <1574@intercon.com> amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes:
>[some text deleted] 
>> For a Macintosh, MultiFinder does an excellent job of allocating time and
>> resources.  For an example, Try running a Mac binary on a heavily loaded
>> (or even lightly loaded :-)) A/UX system--it's pre-emptive, and it makes
>> everything equally slow.  Under MultiFinder, things stay generally pretty
>> quick, in comparison.  For most things, I'd actually rather use my Mac II
>> with MultiFinder than a Sun 3 with the same amount of memory running UNIX,
>> since  I get to control how slow it gets...
>> 
[some text deleted]
>Complaining that you can't control the speed of a job on a UNIX machine
>is ignorance, too. On a UNIX machine, you really get the control you
>want. Although you can't go too faster (get a cray if you really want
>fast).  you can always slow your job. Nice the job, put it in the
>background.
After a little experience with UNIX you should know that this is not true,
either.  You can nice a job, but if it uses a large amount of virtual memory
it will still slow your machine to a standstill even at the most nice level.
This is because swapping takes processor time and the swapper runs under its
own time.  I'm sure you've noticed this effect if you've ever tried to nice
an X server or some other similar huge program.
-Steve