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From: ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: Preemption good, time-slicing bad (was Re: ...)
Message-ID: <1991Apr6.165221.3358@waikato.ac.nz>
Date: 6 Apr 91 04:52:21 GMT
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Lines: 20

In article <12895@goofy.Apple.COM>, rmh@apple.com (Rick Holzgrafe) writes:

"Pre-emptive multi-tasking is a good scheme [on a multi-user system],
to guarantee that each competing user gets a slice of the CPU's pie."

Here we go again...

It's not preemption per se that guarantees that competing users get
a fair share of CPU time: it's time-slicing. Everybody repeat after me:
"you *can* have priority preemption without time-slicing".

Sorry to be such a bore. It was my posting which first tried to make
clear this distinction, which started the subject line for this thread.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro                       fone: +64-71-562-889
Computer Services Dept                     fax: +64-71-384-066
University of Waikato            electric mail: ldo@waikato.ac.nz
Hamilton, New Zealand    37^ 47' 26" S, 175^ 19' 7" E, GMT+12:00
It's all very well being reasonable, but it helps to get your own
way once in a while.