Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!rminnich
From: rminnich@super.ORG (Ronald G Minnich)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Need info on exceptions
Message-ID: <632@super.ORG>
Date: 22 Aug 88 15:17:36 GMT
References: <4989@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <566@wuphys.UUCP> <1754@munsell.UUCP> <413@brambo.UUCP>
Sender: uucp@super.ORG
Reply-To: rminnich@metropolis.UUCP (Ronald G Minnich)
Organization: Supercomputing Research Center, Lanham, MD
Lines: 36

In article <413@brambo.UUCP> morgan@brambo.UUCP (Morgan W. Jones) writes:
>One approach that seems reasonable would be to send a message to the 
>timer.device asking it to send you a message in ten minutes (600 secs).
   Hmm, we have a very nice OS here with a shared address space and 
named blocks of memory and lightweight tasks and ....
   we are still thinking in terms of Unix.

How about (let's be gross now)
run your compute process. Have it write the adress of the 
data to a file called "data". Then run another process
that counts down ten minutes, opens the file to get the 
address, looks at the data, and prints out information about it.

Alright, less gross:
Your program spawns another program with the arguments that 
tell it where to look and how often and what to print. That 
second program opens a window to talk to you.

Or, maybe:
Spawn a lightweight process (task is such a better word, 
but Mach kinda changed the meaning). Since it shares your 
context it *knows* where to look and how often to print.
I am lying maybe since i have not done much with tasks. 
Can someone flesh this one out?

Or, ... , well there are a million ways to do this.
   Let your compute task do computing, not waste time talking
to you. Let some other task talk to you. Then you are using 
some of the Amiga's many neat ideas. 
   On unix you HAVE to have the signal cause sharing data in 
memory is so damn hard. On amiga sharing (even unintentional) is 
the easiest thing. Many processes can easily share an array. So 
why not do it, and save yourself the trouble of having signal
handlers and such?
   I'll tell you, its a nice world there in your Amiga. I like it, myself.
ron