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From: doubt@spotted.rice.edu (Douglas Benjamin Triggs)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: How do we change the scheduler? (Was Re: Multitasking at home...)
Message-ID: <1991Jan21.205623.3867@rice.edu>
Date: 21 Jan 91 20:56:23 GMT
References: <1991Jan18.231330.16290@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <7553@sugar.hackercorp.com> <1991Jan21.004720.25985@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <12880@life.ai.mit.edu> <1991Jan21.055854.14130@rice.edu>
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Reply-To: doubt@spotted.rice.edu (Douglas Benjamin Triggs)
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In article <1991Jan21.055854.14130@rice.edu>, jsd@wahoo.rice.edu (Shawn Joel
Dube) writes:

|> |>   Amiga   Time --->
|> |> Task A  |********        ********        ********        ********>
|> |> Task B  |        ********        ********        ********        >
|> |> 
|> |>   Mac   
|> |> Task A  |*****               **     ****** *************  **  ***>
|> |> Task B  |     ***************  *****      *             **  **   >
|> |> 

|> Seriously, I think cooperative is better. Take the following for example:
|> Two task are running.  One is waiting on a keypress (via OS subroutine)
|> and the other is doing some serious number-crunching.  With the Amiga,
|> valuable time is being spent doing nothing (waiting for a keypress).  With
|> co-op multitasking, almost all of the cpu time is spent with the number
|> cruncher.
 
No, a program running under AmigaOS would not waste any time doing nothing
(waiting for that keypress).  It would skip that task and do the others,
unless the programmer is a complete idiot (which, alas, some seem to be).
A more accurate graph would be:

  Amiga   Time --->
Task A  |****        **                            ****        ****>
Task B  |    ****      ****    ****    ****    ****        ****    >
Task C  |        ****      ****    ****    ****        ****        >
                       ^ point A                 ^ point B

(Where task A is waiting for a keypress between points A and B.)

The operating system only runs tasks which are on the "ready" list, not ones
that are waiting for an external event...

|> rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
|> r     ___     _                                          r
|> r    /__     | \           N U K E   I R A Q ! ! !       r
|> r   ___/hawn |__\ube       -----------------------       r
|> r  jsd@owlnet.rice.edu                                   r
|> rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Doubtfully yours,
--my name here--

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