Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!cunyvm!ndsuvm1!mtus5!aabenson From: AABENSON@MTUS5.BITNET Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Re: Building a NEW computer Message-ID: <90342.033648AABENSON@MTUS5.BITNET> Date: 8 Dec 90 08:36:48 GMT References: <9012061924.AA03548@apple.com> Organization: Computing Technology Services, Michigan Technological Univ. Lines: 41 Just as a small correction, in the IIgs (running P16 or GS/OS), there IS a little memory word increment thingy-doodad -- It's called the "Busy Flag". It gets incremented when stuff becomes busy, and decremented when stuff becomes unbusy. Also, I think that it would not be too terribly difficult to run a multitasking OS on the IIgs -- although I would HIGHLY recommend more memory and a speed accelerator. For instance, you'd need to be able to schedule interrupts at any time you want -- no problem, that's why nobody ever uses all 16 voices of the Ensoniq chip anyway. By adjusting the frequency (pitch) that it plays a flat (no-sound) waveform at, you can control how quickly it gets done, and if desired (it would be desired.), how often it (the Ensoniq 5503 or whatever number) generates interrupts. Of course, a major problem with this would be that many many programs which use sould would suddenly become incompatible. Also, you couldn't really run a couple desktop programs at once, but it WOULD be good for things like alarm clocks, print-spoolers, or even background modem transfers. What should really be done is for somebody to write this "thing", and then create some sort of shell that would run under it -- Then, you'd boot up GS/OS to this shell, and go from there... Otherwise you're talking about rewriting the whole darn operating system... Maybe somebody wants to do that, but it's certainly not me (by myself). I think a small group of people (or even a single person) could write this sub-OS (if I may call it that) without too much difficulty. Of course, it would have to be incredibly flexible and come with a bunch of nifty stuff to encourage others. I guess that's all my ideas for now. Please please please PLEASE comment on them (at length would be nice)... Also, email would be really really REALLY super-duper nice, since we don't get much net news, and half of what we DO get gets lost because this system (MTUS5) has been losing data lately (crashing I think). So if you can, please email to my internet address below. Thanks! - Andrew A. Benson Internet: "aabenson@balance.cs.mtu.edu" Bitnet: "AABENSON@MTUS5.BITNET" (Internet address is preferred)