Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!spool2.mu.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!maytag!csg.uwaterloo.ca!giguere
From: giguere@csg.uwaterloo.ca (Eric Giguere)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Reality check: Amiga coverage is not a right, but a privilege
Message-ID: <1990Dec15.013810.18546@maytag.waterloo.edu>
Date: 15 Dec 90 01:38:10 GMT
References: <2408@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Sender: daemon@maytag.waterloo.edu (Admin)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Lines: 48

In article <2408@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes:
>Shame on you Eric. You've had your Amiga for long enough to know the benefits
>of multitasking. Hmm.. perhaps you've had it long enough to have become innured
>to the benefits, and tend to forget all those times when multitasking is a
>benefit to you.

Note that I didn't put down the benefits of multitasking.  One of the reasons
I like the Amiga is its very clean implementation of multitasking... Exec
is a very strong operating system.

I'm not inured... but I see a lot of people around me doing a lot of useful
work without multitasking...

>If you can't think of anything other than print spooling as a benefit of
>multitasking, you are just not thinking. Telecomm is a classic example that
>benefits immensely from the ability to multitask. Down/uploading is not exactly
>my idea of the most fun thing to do, and unless you actually like watching a
>transfer counter, you will likely be doing something else worthwhile with the
>machine while it happens, but only if you can multitask. Prretty average use,
>I'd say, considering the number of folks out there with modems.

Actually, I don't know many people who have modems, nor do many modem 
transfers.  Those that do have modems use it mainly for interactive use.

As for rendering... I don't think that the average person runs those type
of programs either! (Average != Usenet readers)

>You are right though, in one way. Nobody NEEDS multitasking, but then nobody
>needs a windowing interface, or a mouse, or a CLI, or speed, or a lot of
>memory, or for that matter, a computer. They are all things that are optional,
>but like all optional things, having them can be fun, or productive, or
>profitable, and so on.

True.  But when you're working with something as brain-damaged as MS-DOS,
multitasking can have serious limitations.  I mean, with only a 640K limit
it's hard to find two programs that are small enough to reside in memory
at the same time... there are ways to get around this (use those weird
memory expansion schemes, page to disk, etc.) but they're all kludges.
"So get a 386"... well, we have to deal with schools and such that still
have 512K original PCs!  'Tain't so easy, I'm afraid...

>I am amazed that you put 'downloading' into the category of things done by
>'hacker types'. Boggles the mind, it does.

Well, different environments...
--
Eric Giguere                                       giguere@csg.UWaterloo.CA
           Quoth the raven: "Eat my shorts!" --- Poe & Groening