Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!uwm.edu!uwvax!titanic.cs.wisc.edu!tonyrich
From: tonyrich@titanic.cs.wisc.edu (Anthony Rich)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Multitasking and interactivity issues
Keywords: multitasking,interactivity,personal
Message-ID: <9534@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 15 Jan 90 12:28:55 GMT
References: <1990Jan13.105048.11530@waikato.ac.nz>
Sender: news@spool.cs.wisc.edu
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 39

In article <1990Jan13.105048.11530@waikato.ac.nz> ldo@waikato.ac.nz
(Lawrence D'Oliveiro) writes:

[Many insightful comments about how tightly-coupled a computer user
 is with active programs on a Mac in terms of visual feedback, program
 interruptability, and priorities, and how tight that coupling could
 and should be on a "true multitasking" personal computer.]

> In summary, a personal computer system needs *cooperative*,
> not competitive, multitasking, and needs to be designed accordingly,
> not as a cut-down version of a multiuser operating system.

This is a good point.  Multiuser, multitasking OS's like Unix were
designed to keep the *machine* productive, occasionally at the expense
of wasting an interactive user's time.  That made sense when hardware
and machine time were (or seemed) more expensive than people's time.

Now it's the other way around, and the Mac is a good example; its goal
is to keep the user productive, not to keep the processor busy.  (In
fact, processors on single-user machines are "idle" virtually ALL the time.
But who cares?  As the old saying goes, "Better to have it and not need it
than to need it and not have it."

So in the mad scramble to add features of multiuser operating systems
to single-user machines, it's important to remember that some of those
features were designed with different goals in mind, and those goals
weren't necessarily user-friendly!

It would be interesting to have a Mac operating system which allowed a user
to choose either cooperative or competitive multitasking at any time.
(By clicking a button, of course!  Instantly toggle between MultiFinder and
A/UX-with-a-MultiFinder-interface, maybe?)

I wonder which mode people would end up using most, and for what reasons?
--
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Email:       tonyrich@titanic.cs.wisc.edu  Phone:  608-271-8450
Disclaimer:  The opinions above are mine.  Others may agree or disagree.
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