Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!fernwood!portal!cup.portal.com!phorgan
From: phorgan@cup.portal.com (Patrick John Horgan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Multitasking is slower
Message-ID: <30553@cup.portal.com>
Date: 6 Jun 90 00:40:46 GMT
References: <279@smosjc.UUCP> <4039@darkstar.ucsc.edu>
  <1990Jun5.082227.29350@agate.berkeley.edu> <2517@zipeecs.umich.edu>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 19

In article <1990Jun5.082227.29350@agate.berkeley.edu> laba-1ei@e260-3c (Joseph 
Chung) writes:
>I have a question here: Does WB count as a process/task?  Cuz if it does,
>then exec must time-slice in order to share it with a running game. No
>matter how small that slice of time is, it is still taken; otherwise, how
>will WB know to respond when a mouse is clicked in its domain?
>
This isn't true at all!  The Workbench would (I assume), wait for a signal.
This takes it off the ready-to-run queue and puts it on the waiting-for-re-
sources queue.  It won't get any slices until it gets signaled which will
cause the exec to move it to the ready to run queue where it can get 
dispatched.

It's true that there is some overhead from the exec, but if you don't busy
wait it's inconsequential compared to something so common as slightly 
unoptimized code.  Let's have a big usenet cheer for Carl Sassenrath for
a job well done:)

Patrick Horgan                         phorgan@cup.portal.com