Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ssbn!texbell!killer!jls
From: jls@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Jerome Schneider)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Does anyone have a "cron" lookalike for the IBM-PC?
Summary: Background or foreground "cron" wanted?
Message-ID: <6905@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>
Date: 24 Jan 89 08:33:34 GMT
References: <9937@sequent.UUCP> <350004@hpldoma.HP.COM> <179@falkor.UUCP>
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 24


Although several people have suggested commercial solutions for running
programs at pre-defined times, I am curious whether the "cron" daemon is
to run in the background (like a TSR program), or is it just started from
the command prompt and left to run programs from crontabs at the specified
times?  The background method, used by several commercial programs including
Irwin Magnetics EzTape, has one major problem on my system.  The TSR must
keep watching until the keyboard has been inactive for "nnn" minutes so
that it does not start running a program between command prompts.  However,
most of the keyboard enhancers and macro generators do funny things with
console input, and several of the TSR-style cron programs continually see
the keyboard BUSY because of the method the keyboard enhancers use for
command line editing and history.  It seems, then, that a daemon that is
just started up (like before bedtime to run through the nite fetching news
and mail) would be as acceptable as one that is a TSR.  If you have a 386
or maybe a system with Desqview, it would be possible to start the cron
daemon as a task running in a separate partition/VM at all times.  Any
thoughts on methods of implementations would be appreciated.  I will
summarize to the net, since I am currently working on a non-TSR cron
daemon work-alike and can use all the feedback possible.  TIA

-- 
Jerome Schneider              UUCP: killer!jls.DALLAS.TX.US (guest account)
Aspen Technology Group        Ft. Collins, CO    Voice: (303) 484-8466