Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!udel!princeton!phoenix!bskendig
From: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: System Errors, MF --> Why???
Message-ID: <16795@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 28 May 90 02:08:46 GMT
References: <6364.266023a1@umiami.miami.edu>
Reply-To: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig)
Organization: Starfleet Academy: Princeton University  PQC PTC CIT EECS SCI
Lines: 63

In article <6364.266023a1@umiami.miami.edu> gross@umiami.miami.edu writes:
>A friend of mine and me were having another one of our "religious" conversations
>about the virtues of the Mac vs. <insert system here>. 

>Now both of us aren't such zealots that we won't use other machines, 
>especially if that machine is better suited to do a job than another one.
>However, we do have our preferences.  Mine is the Mac, his is more PC
>oriented.  Anyway, we got about to talking about multitasking...and
>you know where this is leading.  Then he made a very interesting statement...
>something like this:  Apple is coming up with version 7 of their OS.  When
>are they going to make it stable enough so that the least little problem
>doesn't bring up those system error messages and crash your system.

When they release it, of course.  You can't expect alpha software to
go for long periods of time without running into problems; if it did,
then it would be beta or release.

And as for the bad system bombs: if you use well-written software,
then you shouldn't have problems with system errors.  The same goes
for any computer.  I have an SE that I use all day long, and I haven't
had a system error for at least a month and a half now.

Another good point: the bomb dialog box has buttons for "Restart" and
"Resume", the latter appearing only when the error is recoverable.
I'd say this is a pretty stable way of handling errors; certain other
itty bitty machines I've used just won't tell you that you've had an
error -- the PC just locks up, or starts behaving in very weird ways.

What I *would* like to see is another button in the system error
dialog box that would attempt to clean up the system heap and abort to
the Finder.  I can do this about half the time from MacsBug anyway; it
would be nice if the computer were to automatically give me this
option.

>Here's the meat of the matter:  I and my friend would like to know two
>things from Apple and from other informed people:

>1) Why did Apple decide to go with their version of multitasking instead of
>   "true" multitasking like even a lowly Amiga 500 can do (and I don't want
>   arguments that run like 'Well, if you do multitask on an A500, your system
>   will get real slow...I ain't talking performance..I want to know what 
>   why certain capabilities have been put into a machine)

The way the Macintosh handles multiple processes (by letting the one
in the foreground pretty much have as many cycles as it wants while
other applications lie dormant) is fine for my uses.  It's different
from Unix: if I'm working in my draw program, why should the machine
be paying any attention to that word processor and hypertext program
over there?

>2) Why does Apple allow these system errors to continue?  I can't believe
>   that after 6.0.5 versions of the OS that they haven't found a better
>   way to recover from various errors?  Is it because everything runs in
>   supervisor mode?  Can't Apple protect certain sections of memory?

If you can discover the universal method to recovering from system
errors, I'll trade you a bridge in Brooklyn for the secret.  ;-)

>I hope someone can answer these...

That'll be five cents, please.

     << Brian >>