Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:34165 comp.sys.mac:32332
Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!bbn!apple!sun-barr!texsun!texbell!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Apple System 7.0
Message-ID: <3846@sugar.hackercorp.com>
Date: 21 May 89 16:14:00 GMT
References: <17183@usc.edu> <4679@okstate.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston
Lines: 29

In article <4679@okstate.UUCP>, norman@a.cs.okstate.edu (Norman Graham) writes:
> May I be so bold as to suggest Harvey Deitel's "An Introduction to 
> Operating Systems" Revised First Edition for a discussion of preemptive
> vs. nonpreemptive scheduling. This is a very popular operating systems
> text used to teach thousands of computer scientists every year. If 
> Dr. Deitel has no problem with this issue, I see no reason why I should.

I've got that book, an old edition. Any book on operating systems that
includes extensive discussions of CP/M (or probably MS-DOS, now) is
hardly something to hold up as an authority.

Could I hold up Comer's "Xenix" book as an alternative?

> BTW, I plead with all intelligent computerists to cease to use the term
> "TRUE MULTITASKING". If by "true multitasking" you mean multitasking
> with preemptive job scheduling (or preemptive multitasking) by all means
> say this.

True multitasking means you can take a vanilla implementation of Emacs, compile
it, and run it... without interfering with your ability to concurrently run
without significant degradation, during the entire process, a regular
commercial program like Photon Paint or Word Perfect.

A better term would, perhaps, be transparent multitasking. Something that
implies that conventional non-event-loop programs can be productively run
under it.
-- 
Peter "Have you hugged your wolf today" da Silva      `-_-'
...texbell!sugar!peter, or peter@sugar.hackercorp.com  'U`