Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ucbvax!VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU!mwm From: mwm@VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU.UUCP Newsgroups: mod.computers.68k Subject: Re: R. Heller's note on Multitasking, etc. Message-ID: <8702140556.AA10695@violet.berkeley.edu> Date: Sat, 14-Feb-87 00:56:55 EST Article-I.D.: violet.8702140556.AA10695 Posted: Sat Feb 14 00:56:55 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 14-Feb-87 23:41:37 EST Sender: mwm@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 37 Approved: info-68k@ucbvax.berkeley.edu [I've got an Amiga, which has the multi-tasking, non-protected "problem".] >> Now, with OS/9 or Minix or even Micro RTX (ever heard of the Beckemeyer >> MT C-Shell?) , you of course don't have the directory problem but you still >> have the risk of one process interfering with another and in practice i find >> this unacceptable. Maybe Amiga users get used to booting their machine when >> one program goes wild, but that is not my idea of a usable operating system. Ah, but what is usable is very flexible. I'm willing to put up with stray crashes (but see below) in return for a multi-tasking OS, and wouldn't go back to CP/M in any flavor except at gunpoint. I'm willing to put up with having a program being debugged crash things that aren't, in return for being able to run those other things. For instance, right now I have 4 running user tasks (I stopped loading the workbench a while back, otherwise it'd be 5). The ability to drop back into a CLI to check something relating to what I'm typing now is invaluable. >> Many times i have been running simultaneous foreground/background processes >> and had memory trashed in one process because of a stray pointer (from that >> 1 last bug) in the other process. Yes, but 99+% of the times it happens to me, it's been during program development. The following reboot is more painful, but the environment it's rebuilding is more complicated than CP/M-68K. Of course, I'd like to have an MMU. I'd also like to have a 68020 @ 25MHz. Nobody seems to be building boxes in my price range with those features, so I'll live with what I've got. Bottom line: If you can get hardware/software that does what you want with an MMU, grab it. If not, I'll take a multi-tasking OS w/out protection. I won't recommed that someone do development on one while other people are trying to use it for work, though. I'd be leary of suggesting it for any kind of multi-user work at all.