Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!apple!vsi1!octopus!stever
From: stever@Octopus.COM (Steve Resnick )
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: fork() under MS/DOS?
Keywords: Turbo C, fork(), multitasking, MS/DOS
Message-ID: <1990Sep17.190834.21412@Octopus.COM>
Date: 17 Sep 90 19:08:34 GMT
References: <58769@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Reply-To: stever@octopus.UUCP (Steve Resnick )
Organization: Octopus Enterprises, Cupertino CA
Lines: 28

In article <58769@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) writes:
>
>You should investigate the "spawn...()" family of functions in Turbo C.
>(Also the "system()" function.)  These functions spawn a child process,
>and resume the parent upon the child's completion.
>
>You can't really create "fork()" semantics for MS-DOS, since it's
>single-tasking.  I think that as close as you could come, you can do
>already with "spawn...()".  Fork() might be more meaningful in a
>multitasking environment such as Desqview or Windows gives you (isn't
>Windows a multitasker now?), but that isn't really "under MS-DOS" as
>the parent or child would have to know how to open another window to
>run in.

In DESQview a fork which works like the UNIX fork would not be possible. 
In windows I don't think so either, but I may be wrong. It is possible in
both environments to start up copies of the same program, but not duplicate
the same process (which, I believe, is what fork() does.)

Just another side note... :)
Steve
.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
steve.resnick@f105.n143.z1@FIDONET.ORG #include<std_disclaimer.h>
Flames, grammar errors, spelling errrors >/dev/nul
----------------------------------------------------------------------------