Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!cbmvax!joe
From: joe@cbmvax.UUCP (Joe O'Hara)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare...
Message-ID: <2980@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 21 Dec 87 15:24:09 GMT
References: <2027@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk> <2969@cbmvax.UUCP> <3243@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>
Reply-To: joe@cbmvax.UUCP (Joe O'Hara)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 42
Summary: It's all what you get used to doing

In article <3243@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> davidli@umn-cs.UUCP (Dave Meile) writes:
>I find that I get to do many little things around the house while I'm in
>a terminal session.  I can catch up on my reading, prepare dinner, change
>record albums, everything except un-ARC files I'm downloading (which is
>about the only thing I'd do if I owned a multi-tasking system).
 
>Face it, most of us are (for the most part) linear beings.  For single,
>home systems multi-tasking is a less than useful for what we bought a
>computer for ... writing information down, filing that information,
>retrieving the information and playing games.  :-)
>
>-- Dave Meile

Well, Dave, I must disagree that most of us are linear beings. It's true that
we have often been forced into linear activities by the tools we use, but we
can and do think about multiple activities simultaneously (like those
"What if?" ads from H-P).

Let me describe a "typical" on-line session for me.

1. Start up my modem program script to access local bulletin boards, then..

2. Switch screens to my editor to work on my current program. Then leaving
   the editor up and running while I...

3. Start a compile of the program.

When the modem program makes a connect, switch screens back to it.

If I decide to download something, go back to (2) above. After being able to
work in this mode, I'd find linear activity extremely frustrating. Now, it's
certainly true that the amount of multi-tasking one can accomplish is
dependent on system resources, but an Amiga with 512K and 2 floppies can do
a surprising amount unless one is eating up a lot of memory for graphics
display (not likely in the kinds of tasks you've mentioned).
-- 
========================================================================
  Joe O'Hara                ||  Comments represent my own opinions,
  Commodore Electronics Ltd ||  not my employers. Any similarity to
  Software QA               ||  to any other opinions, living or dead,
                            ||  are purely coincidental.
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