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From: mneerach@c.inf.ethz.ch (Matthias Ulrich Neeracher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: PPC, IAC, and True Multitasking (tm)
Message-ID: <2828@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
Date: 21 Aug 90 19:34:29 GMT
References: <1990Aug3.040513.14844@d.cs.okstate.edu> <2760@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM> <13888@cbmvax.commodore.com> <652@argosy.UUCP>
Sender: news@neptune.inf.ethz.ch
Reply-To: mneerach@c.inf.ethz.ch (Matthias Ulrich Neeracher)
Organization: Departement Informatik, ETH, Zurich
Lines: 28

In article <652@argosy.UUCP> jay@idiot.UUCP (Jay O'Conor) writes:
>In article <13888@cbmvax.commodore.com> valentin@cbmvax (Valentin Pepelea) writes:
>>In article <2760@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM> ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM (Norman
>>Goodger) writes:

>>> Pre_emptive Multitasking I suspect will slow down performance
>>> of current Mac's to much to be acceptable.

>>You misunderstand the concepts behind (pre-emptive) multitasking. The idea is
>>to have the kernel interrupt the task in progress if another task of a higher
>>priority is ready to run or if the quantum of the current one is over. If there
>>is no other other task ready to run, task switching never occurrs.

>I agree 100% here.  

I don't think preemptive multitasking necessarily slows down performance, but
if a scheduler is not very clever, it can hurt responsiveness. I'm sometimes
working on Suns and trying to get a command from a nested pop-up menu can be
a real pain on some of the slower window systems. MultiFinder, on the other
hand, tends to favor the front application and therefore it appears to
react quicker.

Matthias

-----
Matthias Neeracher                                   mneerach@c.inf.ethz.ch
  "I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, 
   but they've always worked for me" -- Hunter S. Thompson