Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!purdue!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!wizard.cis.ohio-state.edu!sarrel From: sarrel@wizard.cis.ohio-state.edu (Marc Sarrel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Apple System 7.0 Message-ID: Date: 12 May 89 20:02:40 GMT References: <17148@usc.edu> <24279@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <18268@cup.portal.com> <17183@usc.edu> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga Organization: Ohio State Computer Science Lines: 33 In article <17183@usc.edu> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: In article <18268@cup.portal.com| thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: Has it has been explained in comp.sys.mac by Apple personnel, System 7.0 does NOT provide any changes that allow true multi-tasking: System 7.0 will still rely on MultiFinder. Apple can try to fool end-users into thinking that MultiFinder provides multitasking, but I don't think anybody on Usenet will ever believe that. If you do, may I suggest you pick up ANY Operating Systems book. It might be very educational. Well, the way I understand it, they are _technically_ correct when they say that multifinder is multitasking. This is true in the sense that several things can be going on at once (ie: some stuff in the background). However, they do not have a preemptive scheduling algorithm, which is what most people think of when they think of multitasking. Apple's scheduling algorithm is cooperative (ie: applications have to "know" that they have control of the CPU and that they should be "nice" enough to hand it back to the OS every so often so that some other program can have a turn). This is done in the system task I think, although there may be ways to make your program more MF friendly (I'm not an expert here). So, while I beleive that they are not telling an outright falsehood, I do beleive that their statements are misleading to the unwashed masses. --marc -=- "Master, why is the letter 'i' the symbol for current?" "Because there is no letter 'i' in the word 'current'." "Master, why do we use the letter 'j' for sqrt(-1)?" "Because we use the letter 'i' for current." Whereupon the Master struck the Disciple, and the Disciple became enlightened.