Path: utzoo!utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!atreus!keithh
From: keithh@atreus.uucp (Keith Hanlan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Multiprocessing-Multitasking
Message-ID: <397@bnr-fos.UUCP>
Date: 12 Apr 89 20:59:21 GMT
References: <12700@louie.udel.EDU> <42406@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: news@bnr-fos.UUCP
Reply-To: keithh@atreus.UUCP (Keith Hanlan)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 30

In article <42406@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Jeff Martens <martens@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>In article <12700@louie.udel.EDU> DAVEA%CERNVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (David Almond) writes:
>
>:: In that the amiga has dedicated processers for graphics etc it is, to some
>:: degree multitasking, but not in any sophisticated, scheduled sense.
>
>::::The Amiga is FULLY multitasking, in the sense that the processor is time
>::::sliced among many processes.  Much in the same vein as UNIX, OS/9, Aegis,
>::::VMS, etc.
>
>:to burn precious space, is that the though the Amiga is multitaskingfor
>:all the reasions you outlined is not fully multitasking beause there
>:is no scheduler which controls overall running of tasks. So that it
>:would no how much spare capacity exists on each intelligent processing
>:device, as it processes, and thus be able to dispatch the next processing
>:task in the most efficent manner.


	I think the confusion is that Mr. Martens is talking about
	*multi-processing* but calling it multi-tasking.

	Yes the amiga is a multi-processing computer in that it has multiple
	processors but it is not multi-processing in the same sense as a
	multi-CPU machine. This is hardly surprising. The co-processors are
	dedicated function chips.

	Does this clear things up?
	Keith Hanlan		{uunet!attcan!}utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!atreus!keithh
	Bell-Northern Research
	Ottawa, Canada