Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!ece-csc!mcnc!xanth!nic.MR.NET!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxg.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: MS Windows 2.x and 286 - what's the
Message-ID: <45900172@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 4 Nov 88 15:41:00 GMT
References: <386@fauern.UUCP>
Lines: 35
Nf-ID: #R:fauern.UUCP:386:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:45900172:000:1563
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald    Nov  4 09:41:00 1988



>Multitasking:
>	All versions of MS Windows support multitasking of Windows Apps.
>	Windows/386 supports multitasking of DOS applications while Windows/286
>	(and Windows 2.03) only allow 1 DOS application to execute at a time.
>	Under Windows/286 (and 2.03), you can load more than 1 DOS app but only
>	the visible application (focus app) will actually run.  The exception
>	is windowed DOS apps under Windows/286 (& 2.03).

Windows is "Sort of" multitasking - it has no time slice mechanism for
Windows programs, so sometimes it just freezes up.

Windows 386 appears to do true multitasking of some but not all 
plain DOS tasks. In any case, Windows 386 requires humongous amounts
of memory for DOS programs - in my case probably 200 K larger than the
program. This means that if I want two DOS programs to run at once
in my 2 meg machine, the sum of their sizes can't be greater than
600K. I have never gotten two normal sized programs to run at the
same time - only one normal one and a small utility. There are some
DOS things that completely bring Window to its knees - for example,
try doing this simple thing in a 386 command window:
     copy /b filename prn:

which is the only way to get most files to my HP LasetJet. The system
completely hangs until the print job is finished. DOS print
doesn't work printing these files. 

Also note that a large number of DOS graphics programs can't be 
run in a 386 window - some very few can. No VGA ones can.

Windows 386 is probably useful for some things, but only if you have
3 megs or more.

Doug McDonald