Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!sjsca4!poffen
From: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Why use MS-window ?
Message-ID: <1990Jun4.144158.22800@sj.ate.slb.com>
Date: 4 Jun 90 14:41:58 GMT
References: <404@newave.UUCP> <10509@ingr.com> <54985@microsoft.UUCP>
Reply-To: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Organization: Schlumberger Technologies, San Jose, CA.
Lines: 40

In article <54985@microsoft.UUCP> derekho@microsoft.UUCP (Derek HOIEM) writes:
>In article <10509@ingr.com> fordke@ingr.com (Keith Ford x8614) writes:
>
>Well kind of.  Windows does "timeslicing", which appears to be multitasking.
>Windows timeslices on 286 and 386 machines.  Windows basically divides the
>microprocessor's time into milliseconds which are assigned to each job.

[stuff deleted]

>Now if I'm using a 386 or 386SX with Windows in protected mode (enhanced),
>it will timeslice even between DOS applications.  For example I could be
>editing in WordPerfect,  recalulating in Lotus 1-2-3, and telecommunicating in
>Works all at the same time.  In actuality, however, Windows is just updating
>each application every X number of milliseconds.  You will notice that each
>application will be running a little slower than normal.  That is because
>they have to share the processor's time amongst each other.
>
>OS/2 is the operating system capable of *real* multitasking.  OS/2 has
>"threads" which are processes that can be happening at the same time.  For
>example, I can be formatting a floppy disk and downloading a file without
>noticeable system degradation in speed.   Pagemaker for OS/2 is a great
>example of how threads can be utilized for real multitasking.


Whoa! hold on here! Unless you have a seperate processor for each process,
there is still going to be degradation when more than one task is running.
As long as there is only one CPU to do all the work, then multiple tasks will
each run slower than they would if they were run by themselves. 

Plain and simple, no ifs, ands, or buts.

A good multitasking OS can reduce the overhead of multitasking since it was
desgined to do that, as opposed to a more band-aid approach like windows
takes, but the performance hit is still there.


Russ Poffenberger               DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com
Schlumberger Technologies       UUCP:   {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen
1601 Technology Drive		CIS:	72401,276
San Jose, Ca. 95110             (408)437-5254