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From: lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Multitasking and interactivity issu (sense)
Message-ID: <6840@internal.Apple.COM>
Date: 21 Feb 90 23:52:55 GMT
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Organization: Objects-R-Us,  Apple Computer, Inc.
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References:<105048@<1990Jan13> <126900151@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <18121@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>

In article <18121@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> jmpiazza@sybil.cs.Buffalo.EDU 
(Joseph M. Piazza) writes:

>         Well, I think we can all agree that at its beginning the Mac 
wasn't
> designed to multitask.  The Lisa 2? yes.  Amiga?  yes.   Mac?  No.

The part about being designed for multitasking is certainly true.

It is interesting, however, that you agree that the Lisa O/S was 
multitasking, yet it used cooperative multitasking just like the 
Macintosh.  The only differences were that the Lisa had protected address 
spaces, and the number of system call which resulted in the system 
yielding the CPU was larger.

>         The Multifinder is great for task switching as well as running 
some
> concurrent tasks but hardly an "unqualified success," ...

It sort of depends on what your definition of success is, but consider 
that there are more applications multitasking under MultiFinder than under 
the Amiga O/S.  So MultiFinder is a success in that it provides 
multitasking without sacrificing the majority of the installed base of 
applications.


Larry Rosenstein, Apple Computer, Inc.
Object Specialist

Internet: lsr@Apple.com   UUCP: {nsc, sun}!apple!lsr
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