Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!imagen!geof From: geof@imagen.UUCP (Geoffrey Cooper) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: Re: some questions for the gurus. Summary: balderdash Message-ID: <1811@imagen.UUCP> Date: 8 Sep 88 20:25:44 GMT References: <3e5437c2.13422@apollo.COM> Organization: IMAGEN Corporation, Santa Clara, CA 95052-8101 Lines: 18 In article <3e5437c2.13422@apollo.COM>, mishkin@apollo.COM (Nathaniel Mishkin) writes: > I think that unless the machine is in a locked room accessible only by > trusted parties, you really can't with complete safety allow multiple > users to use the same machine at the same time. (If pressed, I can > [probably] elaborate on why this is the case.) My bogometer goeth clang, clang! Granted, you can make an academic argument about what MIGHT happen in the most severe case. You might even convince youself that timesharing is too risky to be of any use. Nevertheless, the risks can be MINIMIZED to the point where sharing a processor is USEFUL in some evironments -- the gain outweighs the risk. An existance proof about an unsolvable aspect to a problem does not preclude a USEFUL solution to the problem. -- UUCP: {decwrl,sun}!imagen!geof ARPA: imagen!geof@decwrl.dec.com