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From: halff@utah-cs.UUCP (Henry M. Halff)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: QuarterDeck's DESQVIEW !
Message-ID: <3848@utah-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 10-Jul-86 09:01:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: utah-cs.3848
Posted: Thu Jul 10 09:01:37 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Jul-86 07:30:58 EDT
References: <318@gumby.UUCP> <1761@homxb.UUCP>
Organization: Halff Resources, Inc.
Lines: 57
Keywords: Feedback Needed
Summary: Beware 1 hour reviews

In article <1761@homxb.UUCP>, gritz@homxb.UUCP (R.SHARPLES) writes:
> I have just finished fooling around with desqview, and i was not 
> really impressed.  It does do multitasking in the true sense of the 
> word so you could be downloading data from a mainframe in one window and 
> doing something else in another.  But it does this by allocating "ticks"
> to each window: there are 18 ticks a second and if a background window gets
> nine of them then each dos process will slow by one half (if there are two 
> processes running).  I think this is how it works, I only fooled with it
> for about an hour.

The numbers of ticks allocated to background and foreground tasks can
be set as a global parameter of the system.  In addition, you can give
telecommunications programs top priority whether they run in
foreground or background.  Desqview does not give any ticks to programs
that are "idling" so that only programs like Lotus 123 (tm or
whatever)  that hog the machine will noticably degrade foreground
processing.  On the other hand Desqview itself extracts a sligthly
noticable overhead.

> 
> One thing that really annoyed me was the interface, Desqview wants you to
> run all applications from a list of "installed" software.  It then opens up a 
> window and runs the application.  DOS is one of these applications.  If you
> run DOS from Desqview and then in DOS run a program with graphics (like Xtree)
> the program will try to over-write the Desqview graphics.  The results are 
> an unpredictiable mess.  Usually the process hung and you had to reboot from 
> hardware.  

Desqview provides a fairly easy and flexible process for installing new
applicationsincluding those that write directly to screen memory or those
that use graphics.  Some programs that go to graphics without informing
DOS require a bit of kludging, but I believe that Xtree uses only character
graphics and should run with Desqview's "writes directly to screen" option on.

If you can't use Desqview's DOS (that runs in a small window), you can create
your own DOS that uses the full screen.  You probably had to reboot because
Xtree requires more memory than the 128K is the standard Desqview DOS, but
you can take care of that problem by creating an Xtree or DOS application
that allocates more memory.  Another possible cure is to make sure that
Xtree is running as an nonTSR program.
> 
> I have
> also seen a reference on the net to something called Polywindows that someone
> received with a board.  

I believe that Polywindows is a set of desktop accessories like Sidekick (tm 
mumble mumble...).  Some of these, like a cut and paste facility, keyboard
macros, autodialer, etc. are also provided by Desqview.


I have no connection with Quarterdeck other than as a fairly satisfied
customer.

hh
-- 
Henry M. Halff                                       Halff Resources, Inc.
halff@utah-cs.ARPA                 4918 33rd Road, N., Arlington, VA 22207