Xref: utzoo comp.sys.atari.st:6499 comp.sys.amiga:11873
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!hoser.berkeley.edu!bryce
From: bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare...
Message-ID: <22237@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 19 Dec 87 06:20:46 GMT
References: <2027@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Logic Foundation
Lines: 75

In article <2027@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk> pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee) writes:
>
>Time for a bit of heresy, I thought.

Cross-posting to the ST and Amiga groups produces those nice long flames, right?

>I'm well aware of what multi-tasking does and doesn't do for you.  I use it
>all the time on the mini's and mainframes at work.  Nice.

I strongly suspect you would like it on your home machine, if it was available
to you.  We will take as minimum configuration a 520 ST with one single-sided
drive, and leave the Timex-Sinclairs w/tape drive out of this.

>But, I question its usefulness (and even desireability) on typical 'home
>computers' in a 'home' environment...
>...So, what's my problem? [On] one or two floppy [system]
>I have an image of telling my machine 'make fred', and then letting it get on
>with it while I do a bit of word-processing, or whatever.  Only to be hit
>milliseconds later with an alert box:
>
>       BACKGROUND COMPILATION NEEDS LIBRARY DISK
>       PLEASE INSERT LIBRARY DISK INTO DRIVE B
>and, a second or two after I do that:
>       FOREGROUND PROCESS NEEDS AUTO-SAVE DISK
>       PLEASE INSERT DISK INTO DRIVE B

First off, since you are comparing it to an Amiga, it would never ask for
drive "B".  More likely it would say "Insert library disk into any drive".

>Doesn't feel profitable somehow, and definitely
>full of space for making nasty mistakes in the disk swapping.

It you put in the wrong disk it asks for the right disk.  Nothing nasty
happens.

You seem to make the assumption that lots of disk swapping is needed to
multitask.  This just is not true.  Don't be silly, you can put lots of
useful programs on one disk.  880K is not all *that* tiny.

Second off, most everyone without a hard disk on the Amiga uses a
dynamically auto-sizing ram disk that will even come back if that
neato-o program you just compiled crashed the system.  With my 2 drive
floppy-based Multitasking system I don't ever need to swap during a development
cycle.

The only system that has a chronic problem with disk swaps is a floppy
based Macintosh.


Do I find multitasking useful on a floppy system?  Yes.


>What I am questioning is TRUE
>multi-tasking.  I've got no argument with 'carousels' of suspended programs,
>and no problem with resident background interrupt handlers, such as print
>spoolers.

One fantastic improvement is how clean things get.  No kludges.  It works
with everything else because that is the way things are, the natural order
of things.  'Carousels' are also incredibly ineffecient in terms of memory
use... memory is one thing you indicated you did not have a surplus of.


>But, I question its usefulness (and even desireability) on typical 'home
					  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>computers' in a 'home' environment...

Perhaphs you are confused as to the fact the multitasking is an OPTION.
You don't need to take advantage of it.  Or perhaphs you think that
OPTIONS are too complex for real people to contemplate?

|\ /|  . Ack! (NAK, SOH, EOT)
{o O} . bryce@hoser.berkeley.EDU -or- ucbvax!hoser!bryce (or try "cogsci")
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  U	"Your theory is crazy... but not crazy enought to be true." -Niels Bohr