Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!unhd!jwn712
From: jwn712@uunet!unhd (Jason W Nyberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Multifinder - Just the Facts, man.
Keywords: Macs, uh-oh
Message-ID: <1990May3.183410.9712@uunet!unhd>
Date: 3 May 90 18:34:10 GMT
References: <20499@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <8930@hubcap.clemson.edu> <10143@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
Reply-To: jwn712@unhd.unh.edu.UUCP (Jason W Nyberg)
Organization: Computing Information Services, University of New Hampshire
Lines: 37

In article <10143@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> cs163wed@sdcc10.ucsd.edu (see far) writes:
>In article <8930@hubcap.clemson.edu> chrise@hubcap.clemson.edu (Chris Everhart) writes:
>>In article <20499@boulder.Colorado.EDU>, judd@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Steve Judd) writes:
>>> 
>>> Posting the second...
>>There is indeed a catch.  I have used the multifinder (on AMAX) before, and
>>find it to be quite lame.  It requires incredible amounts of memory and does
>>not alow preemtive multitasking.  In fact, I wouldn't call what it does
>>multitasking at all.  If you are running a word processor and something to
>>do calculations for you, the computer will quit running the calculations
>>program while you are using the word processor.  This isn't multitasking at
>>all.  (if I'm wrong, someone correct me)  I call it program swapping.  The
>>processor doesn't appear to be cycling time between the tasks.  This kind of
>>multitasking is the what people think of when they say "who needs it?"  The
>>Amiga is capable of running several programs SIMULTANEOUSLY.  I can have my
>
>ISn't the AMiga's multi-tasking program swapping?   Unless you have

No. It is true multi-tasking.

>several amigas at once, you can never run programs simultaneously.
>Amiga's multitasking only tricks you into thinking it is running
>programs "simultaneously". 
>
True, It does trick you into thinking that it is running more than one
process simultaneously, but it does run more than one process at any given
moment, exactly like VAXs, Suns, etc.  The thing is, the user doesn't
even notice, isn't even involved, in the context switching of the processor.
And, even on a vanilla Amiga, you can run many applications together without
even noticing a slowdown of the system.  Ask an EE professor what an interrupt
is, and how it relates to multitasking...

>After all, you get only one 68000 in an amiga, don't you?

One's all you need.

	-Jason Nyberg