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From: ali@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: The other pointer image
Message-ID: <688@rocky.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: Wed, 21-Oct-87 10:39:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: rocky.688
Posted: Wed Oct 21 10:39:45 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Oct-87 06:35:10 EDT
References: <85@oresoft.UUCP>
Reply-To: ali@rocky.UUCP (Ali Ozer)
Organization: Stanford University Computer Science Department
Lines: 25
Keywords: sleepy sprite

[]
In article <85@oresoft.UUCP> rick@oresoft.UUCP (Rick Lahrson) writes:
> ... I don't recall ever seeing any documentation about
>the little snoring cloud that shows up in place of the arrow/whatever
>when the system is "busy".
>	What constitutes "busy"?  Who determines it?  

The Amiga is never "busy," because of multitasking. You can always pack
in that extra process, provided you have the memory. The "Zzz" image is
used by individual applications to indicate that they are busy. The 
Workbench uses it whenever it does some lengthy (disk) operation. But, it 
doesn't mean you have to sit back and get bored --- For instance, if you 
open a CLI window, then go back to Workbench and do something that causes 
a "Zzz" to appear, clicking on the CLI window should bring back the 
normal arrow image, indicating that CLI isn't busy, just Workbench is.
(Of course, if you do something in the CLI that causes disk access to the
same disk Workbench is sweating over, then you might cause some (or a lot of)
trashing... But that's another story.)

I don't remember having  seen references to the "Zzz" icon either, and
judging from the small number of programs that actually do make use of it
(Workbench, DPaint II,... any others?) I think maybe it's not in the system
(and people have to cook their own up). But I might be wrong. 

Ali Ozer, ali@rocky.stanford.edu