Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen
From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Windows 3.0
Message-ID: <1239@sixhub.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jul 90 20:22:27 GMT
References: <4085@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au+ <1018@ashton.UUCP+ <4100@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au+ <7671@fy.sei.cmu.edu+ <685@marvin.moncam.co.uk> <7770@fy.sei.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: *IX Public Access UNIX, Schenectady NY
Lines: 46

In article <7770@fy.sei.cmu.edu> bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson) writes:

| >Are you saying that if I buy Windows 3.0, I can take any mix of exes and coms
| >from my \bin and run them all concurrently like I can on one of our Suns?
| >Great! why didn't anyone say so before?
| >'Scuse me while I go find my cheque book..
| 
| No. Only that for many people the *PC can't multitask* position is repeated 
| without any understanding of either nonUnix or Unix OSes.  

  You don't need to understand any particular o/s to know what
multitasking means, it's not a buzzword but has a clear meaning.

  Standard MS-DOS is *single tasking*. One thing gets done at a time.
You can start a 2nd task, but the 1st will stop while the 2nd runs.
Programs which are exceptions to this are using non-DOS mechanisms (see
below).

  Early versions of Windows were *task switching*. You could have a
number of processes running, but the switch from one to the other is
done manually by the user.

  Desqview is multitasking. If you have several processes running, all
will get a slice of CPU time in a given chunk of real time (say 1 sec).
No user intervention is needed to make this happen. Windows 3.0 can do
this for some but not all programs (I'm told), depending on how well
behaved they are (ie if they do some of the work for the Window manager
themselves). Some people tell me most programs will work, other that
most won't. The fact that vendors are now selling upgrades to versions
which "work with Windows" gives me the idea that normal old code doesn't
work all that well.

  There are lots of applications for all types of O/S, but the reason
that people say "DOS is not multitasking" is because it's true, and the
existance of things like Sidekick, Desqview, Windows, and seven versions
of UNIX indicates to me that there is a need for it, even if some people
don't realize that this is the intent of all the products.

  In rebuttal to your statement about people not understanding UNIX, all
you need to understand is DOS and multitasking to know that there is no
overlap.
-- 
bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen)
    sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX
    moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me