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From: oster@lapis.berkeley.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Animated watch cursor.
Message-ID: <2359@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Wed, 28-Jan-87 23:43:13 EST
Article-I.D.: jade.2359
Posted: Wed Jan 28 23:43:13 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Jan-87 03:59:03 EST
References: <7488@decwrl.DEC.COM> <603@runx.OZ> <607@runx.OZ> <765@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> <176@trwspf.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: oster@lapis.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 23

The animated watch hands spin because they are spun by a separate task
(So there, all you Amiga owners.) As a result, the watch hands often
continue to spin even when the program has crashed.

Menu Clock, the clock on the menu bar, only updates the time when an
application  gives it permission to by calling SystemTask(). If the time
colon stops blinking for a long time, then you have a hint that the system
is hung that is a little clearer for me than the watch hand.

Since the watch hand runs as a separate task, it is eating CPU time at the
very time when all the CPU is needed by the main task to get the job done
faster.  Now if it were really a countdown timer that let you know how
long the job would take, that would be another matter, but as it stands it
is a bad idea for two reasons:
1.) it attracts attention to the screen when there really isn't any reason
for the machine to get our attention.
2.) it eats processing power when processing power is scarce.

I think these override its cuteness value.

--- David Phillip Oster		-- "We live in a Global Village."
Arpa: oster@lapis.berkeley.edu  --
Uucp: ucbvax!ucblapis!oster     -- "You are Number Six."