Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!uwvax!umn-d-ub!nic.MR.NET!shamash!nis!ems!pwcs!stag!daemon
From: to_stdnet@stag.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: ST Report Volume II No. 55 (part 2/2)
Message-ID: <611@stag.UUCP>
Date: 6 Oct 88 16:06:29 GMT
Sender: daemon@stag.UUCP
Lines: 54

From: thelake!steve@stag.UUCP (Steve Yelvington)


> >I spent last weekend at DRI in Monterey.  GEM multitasks.  Read that 
> >again: GEM MULTITASKS!  
> >No compromises - and a *nice* interface, with multiple "virtual
> >consoles", each of which can hold several windows.  Desk accs are gone - 
> >but, then again, they really aren't.  The DESK menu still has 6 positions
> >for application names, which can be used to launch any GEM app as if it 
> >was an accessory.
> 
> >This is all running RIGHT NOW - I saw it work.  And here are two biggies:
> >I saw it running on a Hercules monochrome system (720x348 BW graphics) and...
> 
> Uhh... what machine did you say this was running on?
> 
> I had the impression that Hercules mono was for IBM PC's... 1/2 :-)
> also, I had the impression that GEM for the Atari was no longer
> supported by DRI, or some such, and that the Atari's underlying OS
> won't do multitasking no matter what...
> 

Well, obviously it's running on an IBM-type PC. 

Digital Research has had multitasking for years; you can go down to Egghead
or Software Etc. and buy Concurrent DOS or Concurrent DOS/386 right off
the shelf.

GEM is a package of mostly graphic services that runs on top of a host
operating system. The significance of this report is that DRI has (finally!!)
gotten around to getting GEM up and running on top of the multitasking
OS.

InfoWorld reported two weeks ago that DRI has submitted GEM to the so-called
Open Software Foundation as a proposed standard graphic interface to Unix.
It would be an extended GEM with X/Windows support. (It has a lot of
competition in this race.)

Now, about multitasking on the Atari:

* Of course it's possible, with rewrites of the operating system.
Beckemeyer has had a multitasking extension to TOS for quite some time.

* Rumors say that Atari already has a multitasking TOS. A few weeks ago,
Roy Good responded very carefully to a question about it; his answer boiled
down to "not now." He did not say "not ever." You'll note that ST-Report
flamed Roy pretty severely for allegedly stifling multitasking TOS in favor
of Unix on the soon-to-be-released 680?0 box. (ET, TT or whatever).

(Aside: Six positions on the Desk menu? DRI hasn't learned much.)



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