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From: doner@henri.ucsb.edu (John Doner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: True Multitasking
Message-ID: <8262@hub.ucsb.edu>
Date: 17 Jan 91 17:50:39 GMT
References: <19063@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Sender: news@hub.ucsb.edu
Reply-To: doner@henri.UUCP (John Doner)
Organization: University of California, Santa Barbara
Lines: 16

In article <19063@shlump.nac.dec.com> long@mcntsh.enet.dec.com (Rich Long) writes:
> But there are places where "less
> cooperative" multitasking would be appreciated, such as (as I've said before)
> copying files and formatting disks.

I'll allow that pre-emptive multitasking might be useful for some
things.  But I wonder how much help it would be when it comes to disk
activity.  The disk driver must turn off interupts for fairly long
periods for physical reasons.  This is why mouse movement becomes
erratic while the floppy drive is running.  I don't know the details
of how formatting programs work, but couldn't asynchronous calls be
used to make the process more friendly?  If that isn't true, then I
don't believe preemptive multitasking would make any difference.

John E. Doner	doner@henri.ucsb.edu	(805)893-3941
Dept. Mathematics, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA 93106