Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!ALASKA.BITNET!FXDDR
From: FXDDR@ALASKA.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: MacMultitasking...almost
Message-ID: <8802100646.AA16770@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 10 Feb 88 00:55:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 27

This isn't strictly related to the ST, but I thought that the people who
recently argued that civilization, yea verily life itself, could not
continue without multitasking micros might find this amusing.  It's from
the "Program Notes" column of the Feb 88 IEEE Spectrum (p19).

  Not-quite-MacMultitasking
  ...
  An August press release from Apple Computer Inc. trumpeted the release
  of MultiFinder, the "first multitasking operating system for the
  Macintosh."  But the software might be more appropriately called
  cooperative system-sharing.
  ... (several paragraphs about the restrictions and catches in
       MultiFinder) ...
  Even "Program Notes" was taken in; the column [Spectrum, December 1987,
  p. 22] claimed MultiFinder was an actual multitasking system.  Apple
  says, however, that operating systems should be driven by the
  applications' needs, so perhaps true multitasking for the Mac will be
  relegated to A/UX -- Apple's version of Unix.

From the list of limitations they quote, it sounds like Apple has a ways to
go before it catches up to Beckmeyer's line...
I still don't like the wimpy pseudo-multitasking like Amiga and Unix push.
I prefer real multitasking, where each process has its own processor!
But I've got a lot more soldering before I get there...

Don Rice
FXDDR@ALASKA.bitnet