Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!van-bc!ubc-cs!cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca!ballard
From: ballard@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Alan Ballard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.programmer
Subject: Re: SH & timeslicing
Message-ID: <10012@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: 11 Oct 90 15:33:11 GMT
References: <1990Oct11.122421.35597@kontu.utu.fi>
Sender: news@cs.ubc.ca
Reply-To: ballard@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Alan Ballard)
Organization: UBC Computing Centre, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 18

In article <1990Oct11.122421.35597@kontu.utu.fi> hysky@kontu.utu.fi writes:

>I'm currently using the Unix like shell posted to the news a while ago.
>When I start NMAKE on background (nmake &) it seems that it only works
>when I do something on foreground.
 
Could it be that unix-like shell (which I haven't looked at) is actually
dumb enough to sit in a polling loop waiting for you to enter something?
That would explain the symptom, since the foreground task gets priority.
(And the background would get a share of the CPU when the foreground does
something else, such as any disk I/O). 
 
Just speculation... you could check it out by running one of the CPU 
monitor programs and see if it shows 100%. 
Alan Ballard                   | Internet: ballard@ucs.ubc.ca
University Computing Services  |   Bitnet: USERAB1@UBCMTSG
University of British Columbia |    Phone: 604-228-3074
Vancouver B.C. Canada V6R 1W5  |      Fax: 604-228-5116