CAN A MAC MULTI-TASK without problems?!!!

Scott Ellsworth

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Sep 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM9/30/97

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In article <343175...@ping.be>, Luc.v...@ping.be wrote:
>Hello,
>
>So far I was owning a PC, but I am now on the lookout for a MAC! The
>main reason would be that for now it's still the standard in music
>applications (which is my work)!

I have enjoyed using a Mac for most purposes.

>But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
>multi-tasking I mean:

According to your definition, yes.

>- run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time
>- being able to switch between those programs on the fly

The number of applications is limited by your available memory. This will
vary wildly - Painter takes up 10megs of RAM, while MacWrite Pro takes up a
bit over 2, and a number of applications take up about 1. Also, because the
Mac does not have protected memory, running some apps can take out everything.
(Netscape is my biggest culprit for this).

So, if you find you are running a lot of apps, and getting a lot of crashes,
try not running one of the set you were running for a while, and see if the
behavior changes. If it does, contact the vendor, and ask if there is a later
version.

>And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
>OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?

Yep. 7 and 8 were both quite good, though I would reccomend staying either
with system 8 or system 7.6.1, as earlier versions did have some
instabilities on systems I used.

>Any good feedback from MAC users would be very welcome! Thanks in
>advance!

Drop a line if you have any further questions.

Scott
.

Scott Ellsworth sc...@eviews.com
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

Dan Morgan

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Sep 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM9/30/97

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In article <ejalbert-300...@ejalbert.stanford.edu>,
ejal...@leland.stanford.edu (Eric Albert) wrote:

|> But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
|> multi-tasking I mean:
|>

|> - run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time
|> - being able to switch between those programs on the fly
|>

|> And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
|> OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?
|

|On both Macs and PCs, you can run as many applications at a time as will
|fit into RAM (more, if you're running virtual memory, which most everyone
|is these days) and switch between those apps on the fly. That's not
|multitasking; that's just using your computer.
|
|Multitasking, though, allows applications that are not currently the one
|that you're using to continue working in the background. Current Macs
|don't support this, though they do support something called multithreading
|that, without getting into the technical details, is basically
|multitasking but slower. It's really not a difference that you'll notice
|*all* that much, unless you're doing some very processor-intensive tasks
|and you'd rather not have to wait for them to finish before having your
|computer back at full speed. For typical day-to-day stuff, it really
|doesn't make a difference.

Actually the difference is preemptive multitasking vs Cooperative
multitasking. They are both multitasking. In the preemptive mode the
*system* decides who gets time. In cooperative the applications
themselves have to give up time proactively. This is totally over
simplified, but it should at least answer the question. Multithreading is
a completely diferent issue. It has to do with the ability of a single
application to do several things at once. Multithreading has been on the
Mac for awhile, but until MacOS 8.0 the Finder itself wasn't
multithreaded. Many other applications were (like for example this
newsreader I'm using.)

____________________________________________________________
Daniel L Morgan
Senior Architect
Fabrik Communications, Inc.
E-Mail: <mailto:dmo...@fabrik.com>
Company: <http://www.fabrik.com>
Personal: <http://spokane.fabrik.com/Dan>
509.238.2947
509.238.2948 Fax

Luc.v...@ping.be

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Sep 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM9/30/97

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Hello,

So far I was owning a PC, but I am now on the lookout for a MAC! The
main reason would be that for now it's still the standard in music
applications (which is my work)!

But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
multi-tasking I mean:

- run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time
- being able to switch between those programs on the fly

And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?

Any good feedback from MAC users would be very welcome! Thanks in
advance!

Kind Regards,

Luc van Hoye.

Eric Albert

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Sep 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM9/30/97

to

In article <343175...@ping.be>, Luc.v...@ping.be wrote:

> Hello,
>
> So far I was owning a PC, but I am now on the lookout for a MAC! The
> main reason would be that for now it's still the standard in music
> applications (which is my work)!
>
> But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
> multi-tasking I mean:
>
> - run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time
> - being able to switch between those programs on the fly
>
> And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
> OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?

On both Macs and PCs, you can run as many applications at a time as will

fit into RAM (more, if you're running virtual memory, which most everyone
is these days) and switch between those apps on the fly. That's not
multitasking; that's just using your computer.

Multitasking, though, allows applications that are not currently the one
that you're using to continue working in the background. Current Macs
don't support this, though they do support something called multithreading
that, without getting into the technical details, is basically
multitasking but slower. It's really not a difference that you'll notice
*all* that much, unless you're doing some very processor-intensive tasks
and you'd rather not have to wait for them to finish before having your
computer back at full speed. For typical day-to-day stuff, it really
doesn't make a difference.

Oh, and MacOS 8.0 handles multithreading better than any prior version of

Kevin

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Sep 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM9/30/97

to

In article <343175...@ping.be>, Luc.v...@ping.be wrote:

> Hello,
>
> So far I was owning a PC, but I am now on the lookout for a MAC! The
> main reason would be that for now it's still the standard in music
> applications (which is my work)!
>
> But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
> multi-tasking I mean:
>
> - run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time
> - being able to switch between those programs on the fly
>
> And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
> OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?
>

> Any good feedback from MAC users would be very welcome! Thanks in
> advance!
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Luc van Hoye.

Well, let's see...

On my very low-end Mac (Performa 6200 603/75, 24MB physical RAM, Virtual
Memory on for 40MB total), I am running System 7.5.5. As I type this, I am
running two instances of YA-NewsWatcher (the other instance in currently
downloading some binaries), plus UnUU, plus Eudora Light, plus MSIE 4.0p1,
plus a fantastic little freeware utility called The Tilery. Switch between
programs? Instantly! Without problems? Absolutely!

I have always run this computer way beyond its intended limits. Sure, I
sometimes pay a speed penalty, but that's the price of using a low-end
computer to do high-end work. Since upgrading to 7.5.5, I've never had a
stability problem that wasn't caused by Netscape Navigator. Even though I
have an aversion to Microsoft, I gladly use MSIE instead of Netscape's
products.

If you purchase any reasonably modern (603e/200MHz or faster) Macintosh,
you will be *very* happy.

Kevin Craig

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Tell you whut. I think body piercing is a good thing. You can tell who's
not right by just looking at them"
- Hank "King of the" Hill
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Howard S Shubs

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Sep 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM9/30/97

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In article <Dan_Morgan-30...@bkhome.fabrik.com>,
Dan_M...@BKHome.Fabrik.com (Dan Morgan) wrote:

>Actually the difference is preemptive multitasking vs Cooperative
>multitasking. They are both multitasking.

Perhaps we need a new term. Here, I'll coin one: Weak and Strong
multitasking. Those of us used to larger, or at least more powerful,
equipment, are used to Strong Multitasking (pre-emptive) where you get
useful things like memory protection and actually don't have to worry
about one bad application taking over the machine and turning off
interrupts and such.

Weak multitasking ("cooperative") is only operative as long as everyone
(successfully) plays nice, and that's fairly unusual.

I prefer the Real Stuff (Strong Multitasking) and can't -wait- to jump
into Rhapsody, which is supposed to have it. I'll drop Mac OS 1..8 like a
hot brick as soon as I can get something stable. I'll buy hardware
specifically to run Rhapsody.

--
Howard S Shubs hsh...@bix.com
The Denim Adept hsh...@mindspring.com

Eric Remy

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Sep 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM9/30/97

to

In article <343175...@ping.be>, Luc.v...@ping.be wrote:

> Hello,
>
> So far I was owning a PC, but I am now on the lookout for a MAC! The
> main reason would be that for now it's still the standard in music
> applications (which is my work)!
>
> But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
> multi-tasking I mean:
>
> - run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time
> - being able to switch between those programs on the fly
>

Yes to both. Programs in the background will keep running, the same as
under Windows. The difference is that the OS doesn't control the
timeslicing- the apps do. This means that a piggish app can "steal" the
processor and stop everything else on the system, but very few Mac apps do
this. You can still swtich from one to the other without problems though.

> And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
> OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?

Post OS7.0, no. Prior to that you had to run MultiFinder to get the same
behavior, although I can't imagine any reason you'd be running OS6 today
unless you have a Mac Plus.

>
> Any good feedback from MAC users would be very welcome! Thanks in
> advance!

BTW, it's Mac, not MAC.

--
Eric R. edr...@chem1.usc.edu
Director of Instructional Computing, USC Chemistry
"See, I told you they'd listen to Reason"- Fisheye, _Snow Crash_
If you think I speak for USC, see your doctor now.

Matthew Billmers

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Sep 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM9/30/97

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In article <Dan_Morgan-30...@bkhome.fabrik.com>,
Dan_M...@BKHome.Fabrik.com (Dan Morgan) wrote:

>In article <ejalbert-300...@ejalbert.stanford.edu>,
>ejal...@leland.stanford.edu (Eric Albert) wrote:

[...]

> |> But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
> |> multi-tasking I mean:
> |>
> |> - run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time
> |> - being able to switch between those programs on the fly
> |>

> |> And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
> |> OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?

[...]

>
>Actually the difference is preemptive multitasking vs Cooperative

>multitasking. They are both multitasking. In the preemptive mode the
>*system* decides who gets time. In cooperative the applications
>themselves have to give up time proactively. This is totally over
>simplified, but it should at least answer the question. Multithreading is
>a completely diferent issue. It has to do with the ability of a single
>application to do several things at once. Multithreading has been on the
>Mac for awhile, but until MacOS 8.0 the Finder itself wasn't
>multithreaded. Many other applications were (like for example this
>newsreader I'm using.)

Yes. The bottom line is that a new fast Mac (I mean faster than 100 Mhz)
will be able to keep up with you doing as many things as you can do at
once.

MacOS is cooperatively multitasked, rather than preemptively multitasked.
So for some applications other programs won't be able to run in the
background as well as in other operating systems, but you're unlikely to
notice the difference.

Here's an example from real life:

I have 64 Megs of RAM, and I have virtual memory turned on.
Right now, I'm running AppleCD Audio Player, Claris Emailer, ClarisWorks,
CodeWarrior, Ichat Pager, Internet Explorer, Mathematica, MoviePlayer, NCSA
Telnet, YA NewsWatcher, Now Up-to-Date, RC5 2.005, and Simpletext.

NewsWatcher is the active app, since I'm writing the post. Emailer is set
to check for new email every 5 mintutes, regardless of what I'm doing. RC5
is busy checking keys for the collaborative encryption-cracking project (in
the background).

And everything works fine, although IE 3.01 just crashed again (damn Microsoft).

I'm using MacOS 8, but 7.x works just about as well.

And don't forget that if you buy a new Mac, it will be able to run Rhapsody
when it comes out next year. Rhapsody will have preemptive multitasking
that's at least as good as that of any other operating system, including
WinNT and Unix.

--
Matthew Billmers: bill...@student.umass.edu
http://neon.ci.lexington.ma.us/~mbillmer
Mercury: The Winged Messenger

Georg Schwarz

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Oct 1, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/1/97

to

<Luc.v...@ping.be> wrote:

> But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
> multi-tasking I mean:
>
> - run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time

no problem.

> - being able to switch between those programs on the fly

yes, you can via the program menu in the upper right corner.

>
> And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
> OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?

No. It works with system 7.0 and later (in fact even with some
configurations of system 6)

>
> Any good feedback from MAC users would be very welcome! Thanks in
> advance!

you're welcome (to the Mac :-))

PS: one minor detail: please write "Mac" instead of "MAC". Thanks.

--
Georg Schwarz sch...@physik.tu-berlin.de, ku...@cs.tu-berlin.de
Institut für Theoretische Physik +49 30 314-24254, FAX -21130
Technische Universität Berlin http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/

Georg Schwarz

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Oct 1, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/1/97

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Howard S Shubs <hsh...@mindspring.com> wrote:

> Perhaps we need a new term. Here, I'll coin one: Weak and Strong

no we don't. There are already adequate terms: preemtive and cooperative
multitasking.

> multitasking. Those of us used to larger, or at least more powerful,

--

Gregory Loren Hansen

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Oct 1, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/1/97

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In article <343175...@ping.be>, <Luc.v...@ping.be> wrote:
>Hello,
>
>So far I was owning a PC, but I am now on the lookout for a MAC! The
>main reason would be that for now it's still the standard in music
>applications (which is my work)!
>

>But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
>multi-tasking I mean:
>
>- run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time

Keep running them until you run out of memory.

>- being able to switch between those programs on the fly

Yes.

>And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
>OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?

Depends on what kinds of problems you're talking about. Macintosh
multitasking is a cooperative model, which means each program must
voluntarily give up the processor so other programs can run. It's
possible for a poorly designed program to just take all the processor
time. But it's more typical for a program like Netscape to hang on for an
inordinate amount of time while it does the mysterious things that
Netscape does while hanging on to the processor.

Except for Netscape, and sometimes a number cruncher like MuPAD, I haven't
noticed a problem.
--
2*3*3*37 : The Prime Factorization of The Beast

Georg Schwarz

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Oct 1, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/1/97

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Eric Albert <ejal...@leland.stanford.edu> wrote:

> On both Macs and PCs, you can run as many applications at a time as will
> fit into RAM (more, if you're running virtual memory, which most everyone
> is these days) and switch between those apps on the fly. That's not
> multitasking; that's just using your computer.

whether you'd call this multitasking or not (in fact it *is*,
cooperative multitasking) is not relevant. It's what the poster had
asked for and it's in fact what most people need to do their stuff
pretty well. Now I don't want to go into an argument that preemtive
mutlitasking, on today's computers, is superior to cooperative one, sure
it is.

>
> Multitasking, though, allows applications that are not currently the one
> that you're using to continue working in the background. Current Macs

uh, even by this definition (which I'd agree to) the Mac is a
multitasking machine.

> don't support this, though they do support something called multithreading

my old LC II running 7.1 can download some files using Fetch, uncompress
some archive using Stuffix Epander, unbatch some SOUP file using MacSOUP
in background while I type some text in BBEdit Lite.

> that, without getting into the technical details, is basically
> multitasking but slower. It's really not a difference that you'll notice

multithreading means that one application (e.g. Finder) can do several
tasks at the same time. It's something different than multitasking.

> *all* that much, unless you're doing some very processor-intensive tasks
> and you'd rather not have to wait for them to finish before having your
> computer back at full speed. For typical day-to-day stuff, it really
> doesn't make a difference.

I think you confuse multithreading and cooperative multitaking.

>
> Oh, and MacOS 8.0 handles multithreading better than any prior version of
> the MacOS and has enough other great features to warrant getting it over
> any older version.

Victor Eijkhout

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Oct 1, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/1/97

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ejal...@leland.stanford.edu (Eric Albert) writes:

> > [...] music
> > applications [...]

> multitasking but slower. It's really not a difference that you'll notice

> *all* that much, unless you're doing some very processor-intensive tasks

I was somewhat impressed that my PPC 8100 did digital recording
(CD quality) in the background while I was editing, surfing, all that.

Victor.
--
405 Hilgard Ave ........................ `Sloppy, pretentious, and often unin
Department of Mathematics, UCLA ........... tentionally hilarious, this novel
Los Angeles CA 90095 .................... is right in tune with the times and
phone: +1 310 825 2173 / 9036 ............... no doubt destined for success.'
http://www.math.ucla.edu/~eijkhout [from a review of Erica Jong's latest]

Victor Eijkhout

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Oct 1, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/1/97

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bill...@student.umass.edu (Matthew Billmers) writes:

> Yes. The bottom line is that a new fast Mac (I mean faster than 100 Mhz)
> will be able to keep up with you doing as many things as you can do at
> once.

As long as you don't ...

Startup a program.

Export a movie.

Some other things that take over the whole machine.

Other programs don't seem to handle multithreading very well:
if I have a long running Hypercard Script (2.3, I believe), and
Hypercard is not the front application, it will run very slowly,
even though none of the other applications is doing anything.

Ok, I have only an 8100/80. Sheesh. It was top of the line a mere 4
years ago.

Eric Hildum

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Oct 2, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/2/97

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I suppose it should be noted that in Windows 95, Explorer is not
multithreaded, thus you cannot start more than one application at a
time, and if Explorer hangs, you need to reboot the whole system anyway.
(or OLE, or MAPI, or a half a dozen other things that hang on my office
machine and require a complete reboot two to three times a day....)

--
"The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour
to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly
ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology,
led them into it in the first place."-Douglas Adams

Eric Hildum
Eric....@Japan.NCR.COM

Peter Spomer

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Oct 3, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/3/97

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Luc.v...@ping.be wrote:

> So far I was owning a PC, but I am now on the lookout for a MAC! The
> main reason would be that for now it's still the standard in music
> applications (which is my work)!
>
> But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
> multi-tasking I mean:
>
> - run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time

> - being able to switch between those programs on the fly
>

> And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
> OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?

Yes, you can run as many applications at one time as you want, up to the
limits of your RAM and virtual memory. You can also switch between them.

The main problem that you might notice is that, because Macs currently
use cooperative multiasking instrad of preemptive multitasking, the
application in the foreground will sometimes hog all of the processor
time for a while, so that you can't do anyting else until if finishes
whatever it's doing (Ex: Netscape often does this when reading its cache
files ).

Message has been deleted

Peter Jerde

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Oct 4, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/4/97

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Peter Spomer, pj...@juts.ccc.amdahl.com writes:
>The main problem that you might notice is that, because Macs currently
>use cooperative multiasking instrad of preemptive multitasking, the
>application in the foreground will sometimes hog all of the processor
>time for a while, so that you can't do anyting else until if finishes

On the other hand, this can be somewhat of a good thing: Games take
advantage of it to give the player better responsiveness. The foreground
app always seems pretty snappy -- at the expense of background apps,
though.

If a programmer goes to greater lengths, however, there are some
preemptive-like multitasking features of the OS. Multi-threading allows a
single program to multitask within itself very smoothly, for example.

Interrupt-level programming allows certain programs to always get a set
amount of CPU time. Norman Franke's excellent "SoundApp" sound player is
a good example: when playing MPEG audio files, it requires a hefty amount
of CPU time to decompress in real-time. Especially on slower machines, I
notice that _everything_ slows down evenly while an MPEG is playing, as
though the CPU were just a running at a slower speed... true, preemptive
multitasking. Mac filesharing works the same way.

Unfortunately, the programmer has to do amazing things to get this to
work well... (programming at interrupt time is tricky) and the OS doesn't
help much at all. And the worst freezes/crashes are those that occur at
interrupt time... when the OS has its pants down. :)

It really does bug me when people say that Macs don't multitask, though.
Ever since Multifinder came out back in '88 or so, (and Switcher before
it... anyone remember that?) I've been running multiple programs
simultaneously to accomplish tasks. The Mac's ability to multitask was
one of the things that made it such a great platform to do desktop
publishing: run your word processor, graphics program, and page-layout
program all at once, and copy and paste between them.

I almost always have more than 8 apps open at once. Some are little
cosmetic things, but others are full-blown apps: a memory gauge,
DragThing (launcher-type utility... INDISPENSIBLE!), stickies, eudora,
netscape, dark side (screen saver), word, news reader, telnet... I switch
among them constantly as I do work (or play!) I believe that Apple's UI
for switching among apps, including the show/hide apps, is wonderfully
easy and powerful to use. YMMV. :)

Of course, I do have 64MB of RAM. (I had 48 in my 68k mac last year). I
couldn't have all those apps open without it, no matter how good you say
VM or RAMDoubler is.

Thanks for the chance to rant a bit... :)

- Peter Jerde
je...@tiny.net

webstud

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Oct 5, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/5/97

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> On the other hand, you might _like_ your foreground, serious,
> music
> applications doing that and stomping all over Simpletext in the
> background
> which you forgot to quit ;) this is the sort of reason why beefy
> Pentiums
> are sometimes caught barfing over digital audio or making hesitiations
> in
> MIDI- preempting of the foreground task, and presumably some sort of
> misconfiguration- at least one would think so when it's an over 100Mhz
>
> pentium having problems that my 33Mhz Mac doesn't ever have, and which
> I
> don't believe my spare 16Mhz (8Mhz? A plus) Mac ever had.
> You just happen to be working in a field where you definitely
> want your
> foreground app to stomp everything else. Digital audio can really
> suffer if
> it's being yanked out of action a lot, and MIDI apparently is even
> more
> susceptible- perhaps because it is seemingly not a very realtime task?
> Hah-
> start getting some continuous controllers going and then _pre-empt_
> the app
> some, and watch it completely screw over your music's performance...
> not
> good unless you're a hack and don't notice, and I suspect you're not a
> hack
> :) options? Get a studlier Pentium and maintain better- or get a Mac
> of a
> quarter the CPU, for a third of the cost :)
> have fun! :)
>
> Jinx_tigr
> (aka Chris Johnson)

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Oct 7, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/7/97

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In article <slrn63ii0r....@samoyed.ftc.nrcs.usda.gov>
jste...@samoyed.ftc.nrcs.usda.gov (John Stevens) writes:

> Note what happens to your playback task on the Mac when it is placed in
> background, and the foreground task stomps all over the background tasks. . .
> hacked music.

This *never* happens in practice, since almost all audio players on the
Mac I can think of--with the single exception of QuickTime--use
interrupts. This is not an elegant or ideal solution of course, but
given that sound playback is relatively nondemanding and doesn't
generate too many interrupts, it doesn't really cause a problem.

Sound players that you can't interrupt while playing a sound include
SoundApp, MIDPlug, MacAMP, MPEG Realtime Audio Player, PlayerPro, etc.,
and these are the most common Mac players by far. However, you *can*
prevent them from loading the next sound file in a playlist or from
updating their status windows by running an overbearing foreground
task.

--
Eric Bennett ( er...@pobox.com ; http://www.pobox.com/~ericb )
Viewers/Converters for common internet file formats at
http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/xplat/xplat.html

Windows DNA: another frightening software mutation from Microsoft!
http://www.microsoft.com/sitebuilder/dna/default.asp

John Stevens

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Oct 7, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/7/97

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On 7 Oct 1997 03:55:50 GMT, Eric Bennett <er...@pobox.com> wrote:
>In article <slrn63ii0r....@samoyed.ftc.nrcs.usda.gov>

>This *never* happens in practice, since almost all audio players on the
>Mac I can think of--with the single exception of QuickTime--use
>interrupts.

!Cool!

That would, indeed, be the way to handle it.

>This is not an elegant or ideal solution of course, but
>given that sound playback is relatively nondemanding and doesn't
>generate too many interrupts, it doesn't really cause a problem.

Yah. Given a big enough buffer, and a fast (DMA, for example) copy
audio playback isn't that big a deal. The Amiga did it with DMA on
a pretty slow 68000 ('course, the Amiga hardware wasn't that demanding,
either :-).

>Sound players that you can't interrupt while playing a sound include
>SoundApp, MIDPlug, MacAMP, MPEG Realtime Audio Player, PlayerPro, etc.,

Sounds like these are the apps to choose, if you are using Mac and
doing music.

>However, you *can*
>prevent them from loading the next sound file in a playlist or from
>updating their status windows by running an overbearing foreground
>task.

'Course, in reality, most people who do audio work probably aren't doing
to much in the foreground while their clip plays, as they are probably
listening very carefully to ensure good quality work product. . .

The whole discussion may very well (in real life situations) be moot,
hmm?

Personally, I still think it probably boils down to application choice,
not OS choice. If MacOS supports the apps you want, that is the way
to go. . .

Luck,
John S.

David Corn

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Oct 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/8/97

to

On 8 Oct 1997 23:35:01 GMT, tac...@aol.com (TacitR) wrote:

>>And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
>>OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?
>

>MacOS versions 7 and 8 both multitask seamlessly without difficulty. The number

They load programs and keep them in RAM at the same time, but in 1997
it's a stretch to call that 'seamlessly'.

>MacOS 8 also has a multithreaded Finder, meaning you can perform several
> operating-system-related events (copying files, manipulating windows,
> launching applications) simultaneously.

And for the rest of your apps? How much does Photoshop slow when you
put it in the background? There is -no- excuse for that in 1997.

__________________________________
Reachable at: 281-549-3977 Nights
Please quote in all replies
E-mail address has been spamproofed

Martin Cox

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Oct 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/9/97

to

In article <19971008233...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, tac...@aol.com
(TacitR) wrote:

>MacOS 8 also has a multithreaded Finder, meaning you can perform several
> operating-system-related events (copying files, manipulating windows,
> launching applications) simultaneously.

But not, my pet peeve, format a floppy and do anything else at all.

Sure, I don't format many floppies, but it's annoying to have to sit and
_wait_ on those occassions (maybe one a week) when I _do_. <sigh>

Does Rhapsody let me finally do something productive while formatting
backup floppies?

--
Martin Cox <mc...@ihug.co.nz>
The Third Horizon Science Fiction E-Zine <http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~mcox/>
The (Incomplete) VirtualPC User's Guide <http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~mcox/vpc/>

Tom Reestman

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Oct 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/9/97

to

In article <343e7bec...@news.pdq.net>, at*dcorn*a...@pdq.net (David
Corn) wrote:

>
>Still don't believe me? Just talk to any Mac user who has run BeOS on
>his Macbox. It's _very_ obvious.
>

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Oct 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/10/97

to

Eric Bennett wrote:
>
> In article <343175...@ping.be>, Luc.v...@ping.be wrote:
>
> >But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
> >multi-tasking I mean:
> >
> >- run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time
>

> You can open as many as you have memory for. If you are so inclined and
> have lots of hard drive space, make a really big virtual memory file and
> then open every application on your hard drive (it'll slow you down a lot,
> but it works).
>

> >- being able to switch between those programs on the fly
>

> Yes, except in the obvious circumstances such as running a game that takes
> up the whole screen, which generally requires you to quit before you can
> access the menu of open programs.
>

> >And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
> >OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?
>

> There is no difference. 7 and 8 behave the same way for the behaviors you
> describe.

The whole truth: The Mac DOES NOT PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. That means
that a hungry application can steal most of the processing power from
the rest of the applications. Thereby slowing down the rest of your
system to a crawl. WinNT/Win95, both PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. With WinNT
you have user options that will allow you to give the foreground
application most of the processing power or allow all applications to
share equally. There are other options as well. With Win95 I think the
default is to share the processor equally.
--

Jim Mueller
Author Of WebNik
http://www.globaldialog.com/~webnik

Paul McGrane

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Oct 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/10/97

to

> One problem: Some programs won't let themselves be put into 'background', so
> that you can use another at the same time.
> For example: Adobe Premiere, a multi media program. When compiling the
> project ( time consuming, takes hours ), you are dead in the water till it's
> done.
>
> Yup, I could not even check e mail.

So blame Adobe, what do you want?

> Also, on the Mac, just simply holding down the mouse button grinds things
> running to a halt till you let go. A small annoyance, yes, but it should not
> be that way.

Yup, quite an annoyance. There are some shareware extensions and such that
attempt to alleviate this, none of them work very well. There have been
some rumors that so-called "menu tasking" will be possible in OS 8.1, due
in December.

...Paul McGrane
_________________________________
|condense my email before replying|

Les

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

> >But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
> >multi-tasking I mean:
> >
> >- run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time
>
> You can open as many as you have memory for. If you are so inclined and
> have lots of hard drive space, make a really big virtual memory file and
> then open every application on your hard drive (it'll slow you down a lot,
> but it works).
>

One problem: Some programs won't let themselves be put into 'background', so

that you can use another at the same time.
For example: Adobe Premiere, a multi media program. When compiling the
project ( time consuming, takes hours ), you are dead in the water till it's
done.

Yup, I could not even check e mail.

Not the case on other computers.

Also, on the Mac, just simply holding down the mouse button grinds things
running to a halt till you let go. A small annoyance, yes, but it should not
be that way.

Also: the Mac is too dumb to keep track of it's memory. After using a few small
programs and closing a few, it will declare that it can't open another one
because
it can't find enough memory to run it in. OS experts call this "memory
fragmentation".

The only solution is to close and re-open some of the programs to allow the
memory to fill in the missing holes.

-Les Dittert, former mac user.

--
--when replying, delete "vvv" to correct my address---

Christopher Smith

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

Eric Bennett wrote in message ...

>In article <343175...@ping.be>, Luc.v...@ping.be wrote:
>

>>But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
>>multi-tasking I mean:
>>
>>- run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time

>>- being able to switch between those programs on the fly

>>And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which

>>OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?

What you are describing is not multitasking - it is task switch , which DOS

M. Kilgore

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

Joe Ragosta <joe.r...@dol.net> wrote in article
<joe.ragosta-ya02408...@news.dol.net>...

> In article <61n46k$6mb$1...@nargun.cc.uq.edu.au>, "Christopher Smith"
> <drsm...@usa.net> wrote:
>

> > Eric Bennett wrote in message ...

> > What you are describing is not multitasking - it is task switch , which
DOS
> > could do easily. To be multitasking you would actually have to be able
to
> > *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3
playing,
> > then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time,
which
> > the MacOS cannot do.
>

> Which, of course, proves that you don't have a clue.
>
> The Mac multitasks. Period.
>
> Get over it.
>

Joe, my wife's school Macs do not seem to be able to mutitask, at best, all
we seemed to be able to do is switch tasks and that seems to be highly
application dependent. Why is that and what are we doing wrong?

mark

Joe Ragosta

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <61n46k$6mb$1...@nargun.cc.uq.edu.au>, "Christopher Smith"
<drsm...@usa.net> wrote:

> Eric Bennett wrote in message ...

> >In article <343175...@ping.be>, Luc.v...@ping.be wrote:
> >
> >>But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
> >>multi-tasking I mean:
> >>
> >>- run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time
>
> >>- being able to switch between those programs on the fly
>
> >>And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
> >>OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?
>

> What you are describing is not multitasking - it is task switch , which DOS
> could do easily. To be multitasking you would actually have to be able to
> *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3 playing,
> then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time, which
> the MacOS cannot do.

Which, of course, proves that you don't have a clue.

The Mac multitasks. Period.

Get over it.

--
Regards,

Joe Ragosta
joe.r...@dol.net
Visit the Complete Macintosh Web Site
http://www.dol.net/~Ragosta/complmac.htm

Joe Ragosta

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <01bcd63a$f56c6460$2df510cf@mkilgore>, "M. Kilgore"
<mkil...@nospam.prysm.net> wrote:

> Joe Ragosta <joe.r...@dol.net> wrote in article
> <joe.ragosta-ya02408...@news.dol.net>...

> > In article <61n46k$6mb$1...@nargun.cc.uq.edu.au>, "Christopher Smith"
> > <drsm...@usa.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Eric Bennett wrote in message ...

> <snip> >

> > > What you are describing is not multitasking - it is task switch , which
> DOS
> > > could do easily. To be multitasking you would actually have to be able
> to
> > > *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3
> playing,
> > > then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time,
> which
> > > the MacOS cannot do.
> >
> > Which, of course, proves that you don't have a clue.
> >
> > The Mac multitasks. Period.
> >
> > Get over it.
> >
>

> Joe, my wife's school Macs do not seem to be able to mutitask, at best, all
> we seemed to be able to do is switch tasks and that seems to be highly
> application dependent. Why is that and what are we doing wrong?
>

Beats me. You're probably using some bad applications. Mac software _does_
need to be written to take advantage of multitasking (as virtually anything
written over the past 10 years does). But that's not the same as saying
Macs can't multitask.

David Corn

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

On Sat, 11 Oct 1997 06:43:03 -0400, joe.r...@dol.net (Joe Ragosta)
wrote:

>> What you are describing is not multitasking - it is task switch , which DOS
>> could do easily. To be multitasking you would actually have to be able to
>> *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3 playing,
>> then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time, which
>> the MacOS cannot do.
>
>Which, of course, proves that you don't have a clue.
>
>The Mac multitasks. Period.
>
>Get over it.

The Mac cooperatively multitasks. That means if every single one of
the programs you use does all the right things at all the right times,
it might multitask acceptably for 1997. In the real world, the Mac's
multitasking is in some ways worse than Windows 3.1's, and far, far
worse than Win95's, WinNT's, or the Amiga's.

However, since it does cooperatively multitask, it is correct to say
that the Mac can multitask. It just does a terrible job at it.

Jim Mueller

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

Joe Ragosta wrote:
> > *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3 playing,
> > then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time, which
> > the MacOS cannot do.
>

> Which, of course, proves that you don't have a clue.
>
> The Mac multitasks. Period.
>
> Get over it.
>

> --
> Regards,
>
> Joe Ragosta
> joe.r...@dol.net
> Visit the Complete Macintosh Web Site
> http://www.dol.net/~Ragosta/complmac.htm

Let's tell the WHOLE truth....not just half truths. The Mac DOES NOT
PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. Which means one application can hog most of the
processor cycles which slows everything else down to a crawl. In the
real world, this actually happens with the Mac. Just holding the mouse
button will slow down a Mac.

Matthew Billmers

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <343f7101...@news.pdq.net>, at*dcorn*a...@pdq.net (David
Corn) wrote:

>On Sat, 11 Oct 1997 06:43:03 -0400, joe.r...@dol.net (Joe Ragosta)
>wrote:
>
>>> What you are describing is not multitasking - it is task switch , which DOS
>>> could do easily. To be multitasking you would actually have to be able to

>>> *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3 playing,
>>> then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time, which
>>> the MacOS cannot do.
>>
>>Which, of course, proves that you don't have a clue.
>>
>>The Mac multitasks. Period.
>>
>>Get over it.
>

>The Mac cooperatively multitasks. That means if every single one of
>the programs you use does all the right things at all the right times,
>it might multitask acceptably for 1997. In the real world, the Mac's
>multitasking is in some ways worse than Windows 3.1's, and far, far
>worse than Win95's, WinNT's, or the Amiga's.
>
>However, since it does cooperatively multitask, it is correct to say
>that the Mac can multitask. It just does a terrible job at it.

I don't think it's all that bad. I run an average to ten applications at a
time, half of which often need to be doing something in the background.
Usually it works acceptably.

If you really want something to complain about, pick the virtual memory.
It's incredibly slow. I can't wait for MacOS 8.0.1, which is supposed to
have improved VM.

--
Matthew Billmers: bill...@student.umass.edu
http://neon.ci.lexington.ma.us/~mbillmer
Mercury: The Winged Messenger

M. Kilgore

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

Joe Ragosta <joe.r...@dol.net> wrote in article
<joe.ragosta-ya02408...@news.dol.net>...
> In article <01bcd63a$f56c6460$2df510cf@mkilgore>, "M. Kilgore"
> <mkil...@nospam.prysm.net> wrote:

> > Joe, my wife's school Macs do not seem to be able to mutitask, at best,
all
> > we seemed to be able to do is switch tasks and that seems to be highly
> > application dependent. Why is that and what are we doing wrong?
> >
>
> Beats me. You're probably using some bad applications. Mac software
_does_
> need to be written to take advantage of multitasking (as virtually
anything
> written over the past 10 years does). But that's not the same as saying
> Macs can't multitask.
>

That would explain it, Joe. What your telling me is that applications on
the Mac determine whether "multitasking" is allowed or not. Forgive me,
Joe, but that doesn't quite fit the defintion of a multitasking system. In
multiltasking systems, the OS makes the decisions as to which applications
get to run at any given time instead of the other way around.

I'm a little disapointed. I was hoping that it was just a matter of me not
operating the MacOS properly. It appears that I am just at the mercy of the
app programmers. I'm also a little surprised because it is no big task to
implement multitasking at the OS level on any hardware platform that is
capable of generating a reliable periodic interupt.

mark

Ira Adams

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <61n46k$6mb$1...@nargun.cc.uq.edu.au>,
"Christopher Smith" <drsm...@usa.net> wrote:

>What you are describing is not multitasking - it is task switch , which DOS
>could do easily. To be multitasking you would actually have to be able to
>*use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3 playing,
>then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time, which
>the MacOS cannot do.
>

In my experience, starting with a Mac Plus, Macs have ALWAYS been able to
have several tasks going on simultaneously (as long as there was memory
available). It is true that each additional task slows the system a bit
more, and on slower Macs, the slowdown can make multitasking of very
limited usefulness.

Ira Adams

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <343f7101...@news.pdq.net>,
at*dcorn*a...@pdq.net (David Corn) wrote:

>The Mac cooperatively multitasks. That means if every single one of
>the programs you use does all the right things at all the right times,
>it might multitask acceptably for 1997. In the real world, the Mac's
>multitasking is in some ways worse than Windows 3.1's, and far, far
>worse than Win95's, WinNT's, or the Amiga's.
>
>However, since it does cooperatively multitask, it is correct to say
>that the Mac can multitask. It just does a terrible job at it.

Never used an Amiga, but am forced to use Win95 and Win3.1 extensively.
Neither of them does multi-tasking noticeably better than do my Macs. In
all of them, the applications in use seem to have a lot more to do with how
well it works than does the operating system or the label on the front of
the case.

If Mac users spent as much time spreading disinformation in Windows groups
as Windows users seem to do here, I wonder how much we could affect Gates'
bottom line.

Lars Farm

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

Joe Ragosta <joe.r...@dol.net> wrote:

> In article <343F80...@globaldialog.com>, web...@globaldialog.com wrote:
>
> > not just half truths. The Mac DOES NOT
> > PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask.
>

> Who cares?

I do.

In theory the Macintosh can multitask. In practice it superficially
seems to do, sort of... The multitasking is no better than the
capabilities of the least skilled developer of all the currently running
programs. No chain is stronger than its weakest link. This is individual
applications sharing CPU through a Mac OS API, this is not the Mac OS
doing multitasking.

> Furthermore, as has been stated many, many times, preemptive multitasking
> has little or no benefit for the majority of computer users.

I disagree. Things that simplify development will in the end benefit
users. Cooperative multitasking is harder to write in a way that is
acceptable by most users. So much harder that I cant find any program on
my Macintosh, running Mac OS 8, that multitasks as good as or better
than proper multitasking as found on SunOS or VMS or NT or... None! A
small sample of these IMO poorly multitasking programs on my own disk is
Codewarrior, MPW, SPM, MSIE, Netscape, MacSOUP, Eudora, Clarisworks,
Excel, Word, ... These are all great programs and I use them regularly
and I like them, but I do find their MT-capabilities lacking and it's
not the fault of the developers. Not even Apple's own developers can
cope with cooperative MT. See what happens when you keep a menu down, or
keep a button pressed, or while you're waiting for a connection or while
Codewarrior is looking for files or ... Users definitely will benefit
from preemptive multitasking. If for no other reason than developers can
then focus on user related features rather than feeding useless and
obscure code to a code hungry, aging and old Mac OS.

Exactly the same argument could be done for preemtive intra process
multithreading and interprocess protected memory.

It's a developer thing whose effects will indirectly ripple out to end
users as developers can focus on user related and usable features rather
than the clerical and improductive parts of programing.

There is hope for the Macintosh and that hope is Rhapsody. Except, all
the current talk about downplaying Rhapsody and resurrecting old Mac OS
is very, very disturbing. Mac OS can live as one or several processes
under Rhapsody for compatibility, and that's fine, but not more.

--
Lars Farm; lars...@ite.mh.se - Limt/Channelmatic: lars...@limt.se

Jim Mueller

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

Tyler Cheung wrote:

> >> The Mac multitasks. Period.
> >>
> >> Get over it.

> >> http://www.dol.net/~Ragosta/complmac.htm

> >
> >Let's tell the WHOLE truth....not just half truths. The Mac DOES NOT
> >PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. Which means one application can hog most of the
> >processor cycles which slows everything else down to a crawl. In the
> >real world, this actually happens with the Mac. Just holding the mouse
> >button will slow down a Mac.

> I guess it has been mentioned somewhere in this thread before that the
> Mac multitasks cooperatively - the reasoning behind this was, I suppose,
> that the Mac is intended primarily for personal use, and thus, some
> applications would merit much more processor resources than other less
> important ones, and would not benefit by being restricted by a preemptive
> scheme. This works great if you want to give the entire computer over to
> render some complex 3D scheme, but for servers and with badly written apps
> such as Netscape 3.0, this causes slowdowns (although there is a program
> out that puts the mouse button hold applevent into a thread which enables
> things to go on while the button is held down.)
>
> Tyler

Thanks, Tyler, it's refreshing to see an objective and truthful view
from someone that's actually technically competent.

Gary Curtis

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

Jim Mueller wrote:

>
> Eric Bennett wrote:
> >
> > In article <343175...@ping.be>, Luc.v...@ping.be wrote:
> >
> > >But now I am wondering if you can actually multi-task on a MAC? With
> > >multi-tasking I mean:
> > >
> > >- run several (up to how many???) applications at the same time
> >

> > You can open as many as you have memory for. If you are so inclined and
> > have lots of hard drive space, make a really big virtual memory file and
> > then open every application on your hard drive (it'll slow you down a lot,
> > but it works).
> >

> > >- being able to switch between those programs on the fly
> >

> > Yes, except in the obvious circumstances such as running a game that takes
> > up the whole screen, which generally requires you to quit before you can
> > access the menu of open programs.
> >

> > >And can you do this without problems?!!! Also does it depends on which
> > >OS version you use (OS7, OS8?)?
> >

> > There is no difference. 7 and 8 behave the same way for the behaviors you
> > describe.
>
> The whole truth: The Mac DOES NOT PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. That means
> that a hungry application can steal most of the processing power from
> the rest of the applications. Thereby slowing down the rest of your
> system to a crawl. WinNT/Win95, both PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. With WinNT
> you have user options that will allow you to give the foreground
> application most of the processing power or allow all applications to
> share equally. There are other options as well. With Win95 I think the
> default is to share the processor equally.
> --

Almost right! WinNT does a nice job of preemptive multitasking.
Win95 on the other hand is still a mongrel piece of garbage that
that is part DOS, part 16bit Windoze and part 32 bit Windoze. It can
preemptively multitask (pretty poorly) the 32 bit code as long as
no calls are made to the older 16 bit code. If any real mode drivers
or 16bit apps are running then they cooperatively multitask and
only give up the cpu when they are good and ready.

The Mac does not provide preemptive multitasking, which is part
of the reason I am not a Mac user. The Mac has the best user
interface however. If only someone could build a system with the
power and elegant infrastructure of NextOS, with a user interface
as good as MacOS, and the consumer support of Win95. Maybe Rhapsody
will finally do it....who knows.

It good to see that that M$ has finally got around to "inventing"
preemptive multitasking so that the masses can have access to
capabilities that have been available for years :-)..

Gary.

Dan Babcock

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

On Sat, 11 Oct 1997 14:25:28 -0400, joe.r...@dol.net (Joe Ragosta)
wrote:

>> not just half truths. The Mac DOES NOT
>> PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask.
>
>Who cares?

The people who are stuck using Macs, I guess?

>Furthermore, as has been stated many, many times, preemptive multitasking
>has little or no benefit for the majority of computer users.

That's right. All Mac users need is a few pretty icons. I don't know
why Apple needs to spend so much on R&D to satisfy such an undemanding
customer base.

Dan

Jim Mueller

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

Gary Curtis wrote:
> >
> > The whole truth: The Mac DOES NOT PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. That means
> > that a hungry application can steal most of the processing power from
> > the rest of the applications. Thereby slowing down the rest of your
> > system to a crawl. WinNT/Win95, both PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. With WinNT
> > you have user options that will allow you to give the foreground
> > application most of the processing power or allow all applications to
> > share equally. There are other options as well. With Win95 I think the
> > default is to share the processor equally.
> > --
>
> Almost right! WinNT does a nice job of preemptive multitasking.
> Win95 on the other hand is still a mongrel piece of garbage that
> that is part DOS, part 16bit Windoze and part 32 bit Windoze. It can
> preemptively multitask (pretty poorly) the 32 bit code as long as
> no calls are made to the older 16 bit code. If any real mode drivers
> or 16bit apps are running then they cooperatively multitask and
> only give up the cpu when they are good and ready.
>

To say that Win95 multitasks pretty poorly is not the whole truth
either. Practically all Windows applications being sold these days are
32 bit. That means if you run MODERN Windows applications on Win95,
you're going to get PRE-EMPTIVE multitasking. Now, I'm sure you're going
to point out some obscure 16 bit software that is being sold now to
refute that fact. But the point is, you would have to try very hard to
screw yourself by purchasing 16 bit apps. Secondly, Win95 does not run
on top of DOS. It does have some remnent 16 bit DOS code so that you can
run games like Quake, right out of Win95 without Shelling out to DOS.
But this is an advantage, not a liability, because it gives the user
more flexability and convenience. If you run a 16 bit game application
like Quake, the system does not PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask, but it DOES
multitask. Since all game action stops when you swith to another app
while running quake, there is very little processor use by Quake anyway.
I can run Quake, Netscape, be online, have a word processor going,
without even realizing Quake is still there!

Eric Bennett

unread,

Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <199710120...@ppp-02-06.nord.eunet.no>,
mat...@bigfoot.com (Mathias Rongved) wrote:

>Les <l...@anim.vvvrfx.com> wrote:
>
>> The only solution is to close and re-open some of the programs to allow the
>> memory to fill in the missing holes.
>

>Or to use a little application called 'MacOS Purge'.

That won't take care of the type of memory fragmentation Les seems to be
talking about. The only thing that remedies this sort of fragmentation of
free space between app heaps is RAMDoubler (and it simply hides it
well--it doesn't remove the problem).

Eric Bennett

unread,

Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <343EC5...@globaldialog.com>, web...@globaldialog.com wrote:

>Eric Bennett wrote:
>
>The whole truth: The Mac DOES NOT PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. That means
>that a hungry application can steal most of the processing power from
>the rest of the applications. Thereby slowing down the rest of your
>system to a crawl. WinNT/Win95, both PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask.

Gee whiz, it seems that although you are chastising me for not telling the
"whole truth" as you see it, you are guilty of not telling the whole truth
yourself. Hmmm...

Win95 has poor preemptive multitasking. I can give you at least
one case where Mac software multitasks flawlessly and Win95 chokes: MOD players.

Try running Mod4Win under Win95 sometime. Put it in the background and
start running some other software. Mod4Win will choke (it's a 16-bit app
and, as of last spring, the authors had no plans to do a 32-bit version
because "the current one works fine").

Try running PlayerPro, SoundTrecker, SoundApp, MacModPro, etc. on MacOS.
You can run as many other processes on top of them as you want (play
Marathon, Quake, render huge images in Photoshop or do digital video
capturing in Premiere) and they won't skip a beat.

If you're as technically oriented as you profess to be with your SHOUTING
above, you won't need an explanation of why the Macintosh multitasks
better than Win95 in this situation.

Larry Campbell

unread,

Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <343F80...@globaldialog.com>, web...@globaldialog.com wrote:

>
> Let's tell the WHOLE truth....not just half truths. The Mac DOES NOT
> PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. Which means one application can hog most of the
> processor cycles which slows everything else down to a crawl. In the
> real world, this actually happens with the Mac. Just holding the mouse
> button will slow down a Mac.

That's NOT preemptive multitasking.
Preemptive means that the OS can interrupt, in other words "preempt," the task,
and gain control of the OS, which only happens with well-behaved 32-bit code.
Since most apps still contain remnants of 16-bit code, as do many drivers, Win95
can be frequently held hostage by an offending process, even with
something as simple
as a screen saver. I've been able to bring Win95 to a screeching halt by issuing
many commands to concurrently running tasks, and also by simply having a
lot of apps
loaded in memory.
You have the ability to preempt a process on the Macintosh as easily as
with Win95,
simply by doing a "force quit," or, in many cases, command-period.
Indeed, many Mac apps today are multithreaded, and execute tasks concurrently.
Holding the mouse button down does not necessarily slow down the Mac, just
interrupts the screen update. The Finder assumes, that, by depressing the
mouse button,
that the user wants to issue a new command. I prefer this approach to
constantly clicking
away until the OS chooses to recognize the interruption, and come to heel,
that is, if
it does so at all. I also find the lapse in response time between the
click event and feedback to
be really annoying. Many times I find myself longing for a "force quit" or
command-period
equivalent in Win95 that REALLY works, not the errant task manager which
may or may not appear.
Strictly speaking, Windows 95 is still using a form of cooperative
multitasking, with one CPU
task-switching between many concurrently running well-behaved,32-bit processes.
The only real drawback to the Mac OS's cooperative multitasking is that
you still can't do
anything while a floppy disk is being formatted. Apple really needs to fix this.

-L

--
Diplomacy: the fine art of saying "nice doggie" while you're looking for a rock.

Larry Campbell

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <les-101097...@10.127.2.214>, l...@anim.vvvrfx.com (Les) wrote:

> One problem: Some programs won't let themselves be put into 'background', so
> that you can use another at the same time.
> For example: Adobe Premiere, a multi media program. When compiling the
> project ( time consuming, takes hours ), you are dead in the water till it's
> done.

True, the Mac doesn't let you tweak the multitasking settings from the OS as
you can in Win95 by setting the properties of the app, but you can hack
the app with Resedit
so that it will share the processor's time more equitably.
Remember, just because something's not readily apparent does not mean it
doesn't exist.

> Not the case on other computers.

Debatable. Depends on whether you're running all 32-bit, well-behaved processes
concurrently with Win95.
I'm frequently faced with trying to preempt a process in Win95, even
resorting to
control-alt-delete to bring up the task manager, to no avail.

>
> Also, on the Mac, just simply holding down the mouse button grinds things
> running to a halt till you let go. A small annoyance, yes, but it should not
> be that way.

It's still processing, it's just not updating the screen.
And yes, it should be fixed.

> Also: the Mac is too dumb to keep track of it's memory. After using a
few small
> programs and closing a few, it will declare that it can't open another one
> because
> it can't find enough memory to run it in. OS experts call this "memory
> fragmentation".

Yeah, this happens a lot with Win95 also, despite the more dynamic aspects
of its
virtual memory model.

>
> The only solution is to close and re-open some of the programs to allow the
> memory to fill in the missing holes.

This works better with Win95 than with the Mac, unless you use a utility like
MacOS Purge or OptiMem RAM Charger. With both OSes, before attempting
to run a RAM intensive app, I frequently reboot to defrag the memory.

-L

>
> -Les Dittert, former mac user.
>
> --
> --when replying, delete "vvv" to correct my address---

--

Tyler Cheung

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <343F80...@globaldialog.com>, web...@globaldialog.com wrote:

>Joe Ragosta wrote:
>> > *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3 playing,
>> > then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time, which
>> > the MacOS cannot do.
>>
>

>> Which, of course, proves that you don't have a clue.
>>

>> The Mac multitasks. Period.
>>
>> Get over it.
>>

>> --
>> Regards,
>>
>> Joe Ragosta
>> joe.r...@dol.net
>> Visit the Complete Macintosh Web Site
>> http://www.dol.net/~Ragosta/complmac.htm
>

>Let's tell the WHOLE truth....not just half truths. The Mac DOES NOT
>PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. Which means one application can hog most of the
>processor cycles which slows everything else down to a crawl. In the
>real world, this actually happens with the Mac. Just holding the mouse
>button will slow down a Mac.

>--

I guess it has been mentioned somewhere in this thread before that the
Mac multitasks cooperatively - the reasoning behind this was, I suppose,
that the Mac is intended primarily for personal use, and thus, some
applications would merit much more processor resources than other less
important ones, and would not benefit by being restricted by a preemptive
scheme. This works great if you want to give the entire computer over to
render some complex 3D scheme, but for servers and with badly written apps
such as Netscape 3.0, this causes slowdowns (although there is a program
out that puts the mouse button hold applevent into a thread which enables
things to go on while the button is held down.)

Tyler

--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Tyler Cheung :-)
tycheung@.millburn.org tyler....@yale.edu
http://www.cheung.millburn.org/ http://pantheon.yale.edu/~tcc6/

Joe Ragosta

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <343F80...@globaldialog.com>, web...@globaldialog.com wrote:

> Joe Ragosta wrote:
> > > *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3 playing,
> > > then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time, which
> > > the MacOS cannot do.
> >
>
> > Which, of course, proves that you don't have a clue.
> >
> > The Mac multitasks. Period.
> >
> > Get over it.
> >

> Let's tell the WHOLE truth....

Coming from you, that would be a nice switch.

> not just half truths. The Mac DOES NOT
> PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask.

Who cares?

Go back and reread the post I was responding to. Someone said that Macs
don't multitask. That is an incorrect statement.

The fact that you can modify it to make a true statement doesn't change the
fact that it was wrong.

Furthermore, as has been stated many, many times, preemptive multitasking
has little or no benefit for the majority of computer users.

--

Joe Ragosta

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <01bcd662$6a8d1060$31f510cf@mkilgore>, "M. Kilgore"
<mkil...@nospam.prysm.net> wrote:

> Joe Ragosta <joe.r...@dol.net> wrote in article
> <joe.ragosta-ya02408...@news.dol.net>...
> > In article <01bcd63a$f56c6460$2df510cf@mkilgore>, "M. Kilgore"
> > <mkil...@nospam.prysm.net> wrote:
>
> > > Joe, my wife's school Macs do not seem to be able to mutitask, at best,
> all
> > > we seemed to be able to do is switch tasks and that seems to be highly
> > > application dependent. Why is that and what are we doing wrong?
> > >
> >
> > Beats me. You're probably using some bad applications. Mac software
> _does_
> > need to be written to take advantage of multitasking (as virtually
> anything
> > written over the past 10 years does). But that's not the same as saying
> > Macs can't multitask.
> >
>
> That would explain it, Joe. What your telling me is that applications on
> the Mac determine whether "multitasking" is allowed or not. Forgive me,
> Joe, but that doesn't quite fit the defintion of a multitasking system. In
> multiltasking systems, the OS makes the decisions as to which applications
> get to run at any given time instead of the other way around.

Your attempts to distort things don't change the facts:

Mac OS is capable of multitasking. Even if the app doesn't take advantage
of it, it's still quite capable of it.

Furthermore, let's take your distortion to Win95. If I run a 16 bit app, it
doesn't preemptively multitask. By your logic, the widely circulated
statement that Win95 is a PMT system must be wrong.

David Corn

unread,

Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

On Sat, 11 Oct 1997 14:28:39 -0400, joe.r...@dol.net (Joe Ragosta)
wrote:

>Mac OS is capable of multitasking. Even if the app doesn't take advantage

>of it, it's still quite capable of it.

LOL! That's a good one, Joe. Just like the Amiga's capable of
running Photoshop. Never mind that it doesn't, because said software
doesn't exist. Ditto the Macintosh.

Look, I've got a StarMax 4000/160, but let's be realistic here!

>Furthermore, let's take your distortion to Win95. If I run a 16 bit app, it
>doesn't preemptively multitask. By your logic, the widely circulated
>statement that Win95 is a PMT system must be wrong.

16 bit apps? Didn't I see one of those a few years ago?

The two are vastly different situations, Joe.

David Corn

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

On Sat, 11 Oct 1997 12:39:34 -0600, iad...@earthlink.net (Ira Adams)
wrote:

Tell me about the disinformation, please. I use both, I administered
or have administered both, and I'd love examples of Win95 problems.
I've given a Photoshop / StuffIt example already, under MacOS.

Charles Bouldin

unread,

Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

Just a little anecdote about multitasking (MT) on a Mac. This was done on
a mac IICi, btw, about 8 years ago!

We ported a large (50,000+ lines of fortran) data collection program from
a PDP/11. We got it running easily with the Language Systems Fortran
compiler. This compiler had the *outstanding* feature of automatically
generating the system calls to support cooperative multitasking. This is
such a fabulous idea that I completely fail to understand why other
compilers don't support this. In any event, after we had really shaken
down the code, we recompiled it for background operation. It worked just
fine, taking data while we did text editing, data analysis, ftp, telnet,
etc.

Oh, the system has just been replaced with a spiffy new version running
Labview on the PowerMac 8600. It also runs in the background, merrily
taking data while we browse the web, read our mail, do data plotting, etc.

I really wish that Macs did pre-emptive MT, because it has a much finer
grained time slicing and it is not dependent on the vagaries of bad code
in any individual program. However, it is just flat wrong to say that Macs
don't do MT. They have for about a decade!

--
Charles Bouldin

Splifford

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <61o9pa$e10$1...@nargun.cc.uq.edu.au>, "Christopher Smith"
<drsm...@usa.net> wrote:

> >> What you are describing is not multitasking - it is task switch , which
> DOS
> >> could do easily. To be multitasking you would actually have to be able
> to

> >> *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3 playing,
> >> then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time,
> which
> >> the MacOS cannot do.
> >
> >Which, of course, proves that you don't have a clue.
> >
> >The Mac multitasks. Period.
> >
> >Get over it.
>
>

> Well then Joe, multitask me this (a screenshto would be nice :). This is
> what I am currently running:
> 4 Telnet Windows
> 2 IE4 Windows, both with some resonably complex web pages (animations, java
> etc)

I'm running two IE3 windows and a Netscape 4 wndow, all with fairly
complex tasks, one of them some weird Java thing.

> WinAMP (an mp3 player)

MoviePlayer

> 1 FTP downloading (200k/s)

4 ftps in Anarchie. Slowest is making 150, fastest is 600.

> 2 Explorer windows
> MS Outlook, checking for new mail every 5 minutes

Eudora, downloading mail as I write.

> Winzip, zipping up approx 200Mb of stuff
> EZ CD burning a CD at 2x

Iomega Tools, formating a Jaz just to see what happens

MT-Newswatcher loading the headers for one newsgroup, reading files in
this one, and downloading binaries from two more.

>
> All this on a relatively modest PC (p100 with 64Mb, a few IDE hard disks,
90 MHz 7200/90 (two years old), 56 MB RAM, 500 MB internal disk, Jaz, a
couple external disks. (all SCSI, of course.)

I also have MS Word in the background, and Adobe Photoshop, and NDD for
Mac all open. And I have my Queen CD playing, too.

> burner on an el cheapo SCSI card).
> If your Mac can do this then I'll agree with you that a Mac can "multitask".

Then we're agreed, eh?

--
"I have provided all the data necessary to refute your attacks. If that is zero, zero is all that is needed." --cum...@dialnet.net, yet another creationist cretin.

David Corn

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

On Sat, 11 Oct 1997 12:39:28 -0600, iad...@earthlink.net (Ira Adams)
wrote:

>In my experience, starting with a Mac Plus, Macs have ALWAYS been able to

>have several tasks going on simultaneously (as long as there was memory
>available). It is true that each additional task slows the system a bit
>more, and on slower Macs, the slowdown can make multitasking of very
>limited usefulness.

Don't confuse program loading (keeping many in RAM at once) with
actual multitasking (having them all DOING something at once), which
the Mac is very, very poor at doing.

Ron Drake

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <01bcd63a$f56c6460$2df510cf@mkilgore>, "M. Kilgore"
<mkil...@nospam.prysm.net> wrote:

> Joe Ragosta <joe.r...@dol.net> wrote in article
> <joe.ragosta-ya02408...@news.dol.net>...

> > In article <61n46k$6mb$1...@nargun.cc.uq.edu.au>, "Christopher Smith"

> > <drsm...@usa.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Eric Bennett wrote in message ...
> <snip> >

> > > What you are describing is not multitasking - it is task switch , which
> DOS
> > > could do easily. To be multitasking you would actually have to be able
> to
> > > *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3
> playing,
> > > then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time,
> which
> > > the MacOS cannot do.
> >
> > Which, of course, proves that you don't have a clue.
> >
> > The Mac multitasks. Period.
> >
> > Get over it.
> >
>

> Joe, my wife's school Macs do not seem to be able to mutitask, at best, all
> we seemed to be able to do is switch tasks and that seems to be highly
> application dependent. Why is that and what are we doing wrong?
>

> mark

There's a Finder setting that restricts you to one app at a time.

Select GENERAL CONTROLS in the CONTROL PANELS item of the APPLE menu.
There's a panel with a checkbox labeled "Show Desktop When In Back-
ground." If this isn't checked, you get what seems like a machine
unable to multi-task.

--
+++

Don't forget to remove the first "dot" from r.dr...@ix.netcom.com
or you won't reach me!

Splifford

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <01bcd63a$f56c6460$2df510cf@mkilgore>, "M. Kilgore"
<mkil...@nospam.prysm.net> wrote:

> Joe Ragosta <joe.r...@dol.net> wrote in article
> <joe.ragosta-ya02408...@news.dol.net>...
> > In article <61n46k$6mb$1...@nargun.cc.uq.edu.au>, "Christopher Smith"
> > <drsm...@usa.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Eric Bennett wrote in message ...
> <snip> >
> > > What you are describing is not multitasking - it is task switch , which
> DOS
> > > could do easily. To be multitasking you would actually have to be able
> to
> > > *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3
> playing,
> > > then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time,
> which
> > > the MacOS cannot do.
> >
> > Which, of course, proves that you don't have a clue.
> >
> > The Mac multitasks. Period.
> >
> > Get over it.
> >
>
> Joe, my wife's school Macs do not seem to be able to mutitask, at best, all
> we seemed to be able to do is switch tasks and that seems to be highly
> application dependent. Why is that and what are we doing wrong?

How much RAM do you have? If you don't have at least 8 MB, you're fooling
yourself. Better take that up to 16 or 32 to be safe. And turn on VM or
get RAM Doubler.

I've been running multiple stuff on my Macs at the same time since 1987.
It stunk then. It could still be better now. But it works.
>
> mark

Matthew Vaughan

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <01bcd6ad$436f86c0$28f510cf@mkilgore>, "M. Kilgore"
<mkil...@nospam.prysm.net> wrote:

> You guys are fooling yourselves,

Not all of us - I certainly recognize that the Mac's multitasking and
memory handling suck, and I can barely wait for something better.

> but it doesn't really matter anyway. Or
> does it? The truth of the matter is that I haven't thought much about
> multitasking in 20 years. I've always had it available when it counted. It
> was only when I started messing with my wife's school Mac's that I started
> realizing how much I depend on it with my trusty ol' win machine. It
> shouldn't be a big deal to include preemptive tasking in MacOS and I'm a
> little surprised to find that it hasn't been done already. Maybe too much
> influence from the Apple][?

I'm just wondering exactly which version of Windows you've been using for
the last 20 years that multitasks beautifully? Windows 95 is only barely 2
years old, remember, and NT not a whole lot older than that. While UNIX
systems have done it since day one, they haven't generally been consumer
desktop machines, at least with easy-to-use interfaces. It's only in the
last 2 years that Apple has really fallen behind the consumer PC market in
multitasking and memory handling.

--
Matthew Vaughan

matthewv at mindspring dot com (damn spammers...)
http://matthewv.home.mindspring.com/
---------
This is your mind.
This is duality.
This is your mind on duality...

Matthew Vaughan

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

In article <01bcd6d0$e7f27720$2cf510cf@mkilgore>, "M. Kilgore"
<mkil...@nospam.prysm.net> wrote:

> Splifford <patj...@super.zippo.com> wrote in article
> <patjames-111...@ntsa12.infochan.com>...

> > In article <01bcd63a$f56c6460$2df510cf@mkilgore>, "M. Kilgore"

> > How much RAM do you have? If you don't have at least 8 MB, you're fooling
> > yourself. Better take that up to 16 or 32 to be safe. And turn on VM or
> > get RAM Doubler.
> >
> > I've been running multiple stuff on my Macs at the same time since 1987.
> > It stunk then. It could still be better now. But it works.
>

> I got the RAM, what I seem to be missing is a way to bring a task to the
> foreground when there's a full screen task on top of it. Is there a key
> combination or what?

Go to the "Application" menu, which is at the right end of the menu bar.
You will see all currently-running tasks, and can select whichever one you
want to be in the foreground. The other way is to click a window of any of
the background applications, which will bring it to the foreground.

Some utilities also allow you to switch between apps with a keystroke or
other mouse click (for instance, the Kensington mouse software for my
4-button Thinking Mouse has a pop-up application switching menu which can
be assigned to any button.)

The other possibility is that "At Ease" is installed, which is quite
likely in a school setting, for instance. I don't know much about it, but
it significantly restricts the interface - it's perhaps even more a
security program than a simpler user interface.

David Corn

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

On Sun, 12 Oct 1997 01:29:08 -0600, x.hg...@slinknet.com (Kevin)
wrote:

>> Dwight Stewart <ste...@sccoast.net> writes:
>> > With either multi-tasking system, you are splitting up the processor's
>> >time between tasks. You only have one processor on any microcomputer.
>>
>> Dual Pentium Pro machines are quite common, and they run NT very
>> nicely.
>>
>> John Nagle
>
>...As are dual- (and even quad-) processor 604e machines running MacOS very
>nicely, thank you.
>
>(BTW, at up to 800MHz (200x4) speeds)...

No, actually, that's wrong. When you have 4 604e CPUs in a Mac, under
MacOS you also have 3 604e CPUs that are sitting around doing nothing.

Under NT, they're actually doing something.

David Corn

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Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

On Sun, 12 Oct 1997 09:48:51 -0400, joe.r...@dol.net (Joe Ragosta)
wrote:

>In article <3442f24d...@news.pdq.net>, at*dcorn*a...@pdq.net (David

>Corn) wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 11 Oct 1997 12:39:28 -0600, iad...@earthlink.net (Ira Adams)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >In my experience, starting with a Mac Plus, Macs have ALWAYS been able to
>> >have several tasks going on simultaneously (as long as there was memory
>> >available). It is true that each additional task slows the system a bit
>> >more, and on slower Macs, the slowdown can make multitasking of very
>> >limited usefulness.
>>
>> Don't confuse program loading (keeping many in RAM at once) with
>> actual multitasking (having them all DOING something at once), which
>> the Mac is very, very poor at doing.
>

>Have you ever used a Mac? From your posts, it's not clear that you've been
>within 30 meters of a Mac any time in the past 10 years.

Spoken like a true advocate, Joe!

I own a 48M StarMax 4000/160 on my home Ethernet network. I'm quite
familiar with them, thank you.

Rather than attack the person, why don't you attack the argument? Can
you? It's quite clear (just do the stuffit-in-the-background-test)
that Mac multitasking is several years behind Intel's, and a decade or
so behind what the Amiga offers.

David Corn

unread,

Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

On Sun, 12 Oct 1997 09:49:45 -0400, joe.r...@dol.net (Joe Ragosta)
wrote:

>In article <3443f27c...@news.pdq.net>, at*dcorn*a...@pdq.net (David
>Corn) wrote:

>
>> On Sat, 11 Oct 1997 12:39:34 -0600, iad...@earthlink.net (Ira Adams)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >If Mac users spent as much time spreading disinformation in Windows groups
>> >as Windows users seem to do here, I wonder how much we could affect Gates'
>> >bottom line.
>>
>> Tell me about the disinformation, please.
>

>Oh, perhaps like "Macs don't multitask"? The very FUD that started this thread.

I don't think it's correct to say that Macs don't multitask (I didn't
say that, and Ira wasn't suggesting that was said, IIRC) but it is
correct to say that, compared to other machines in 1997, Mac
multitasking is the pits.

David Corn

unread,

Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

On Sun, 12 Oct 1997 09:45:40 -0400, joe.r...@dol.net (Joe Ragosta)
wrote:

>In article <343f5ba0...@news.pdq.net>, at*dcorn*a...@pdq.net (David

>Corn) wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 12 Oct 1997 01:29:08 -0600, x.hg...@slinknet.com (Kevin)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >> Dwight Stewart <ste...@sccoast.net> writes:
>> >> > With either multi-tasking system, you are splitting up the processor's
>> >> >time between tasks. You only have one processor on any microcomputer.
>> >>
>> >> Dual Pentium Pro machines are quite common, and they run NT very
>> >> nicely.
>> >>
>> >> John Nagle
>> >
>> >...As are dual- (and even quad-) processor 604e machines running MacOS very
>> >nicely, thank you.
>> >
>> >(BTW, at up to 800MHz (200x4) speeds)...
>>
>> No, actually, that's wrong. When you have 4 604e CPUs in a Mac, under
>> MacOS you also have 3 604e CPUs that are sitting around doing nothing.
>

>Just further evidence that the Wintel advocates posting here don't have a
>clue about anything related to the Mac.

Just further proof that you, Joe, can't back up a single word you say.

OK, then tell me this - *under the actual MacOS* (which is what we
were talking about; you can see that clearly above), not Photoshop or
a specialized application, what is done to take advantage of the extra
three processors?

Answer: NOTHING.

David Corn

unread,

Oct 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/11/97

to

On Sun, 12 Oct 1997 20:19:18 GMT, kclSPAM...@ma.ultranet.com
(Kevin Little) wrote:

>Well, the real reason is that in 1983, trying to shoe-horn everything
>into a small ROM, 128K of RAM on a slow processor, good PMT was simply
>much too hard to implement. The rest is history...

Yet the Amiga did wonders in 1985 with 256k (granted, useless until
the 256k memory upgrade came out) with the same processor, 4096
colors, and stereo sound - and PMT.

Christopher Smith

unread,

Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

>> What you are describing is not multitasking - it is task switch , which
DOS
>> could do easily. To be multitasking you would actually have to be able
to
>> *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3 playing,
>> then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time,
which
>> the MacOS cannot do.
>
>Which, of course, proves that you don't have a clue.
>
>The Mac multitasks. Period.
>
>Get over it.

Well then Joe, multitask me this (a screenshto would be nice :). This is
what I am currently running:
4 Telnet Windows
2 IE4 Windows, both with some resonably complex web pages (animations, java
etc)

WinAMP (an mp3 player)
1 FTP downloading (200k/s)

2 Explorer windows
MS Outlook, checking for new mail every 5 minutes

Winzip, zipping up approx 200Mb of stuff
EZ CD burning a CD at 2x

All this on a relatively modest PC (p100 with 64Mb, a few IDE hard disks,

Martin Cox

unread,

Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

In article <B06524069...@0.0.0.0>, iad...@earthlink.net (Ira Adams) wrote:

>
>Never used an Amiga, but am forced to use Win95 and Win3.1 extensively.
>Neither of them does multi-tasking noticeably better than do my Macs. In
>all of them, the applications in use seem to have a lot more to do with how
>well it works than does the operating system or the label on the front of
>the case.

Win 3.1 and MacOS <anything> are pretty much comparable for "multi-tasking"
purposes. They both do co-operative m-tasking, which is a pretty poor
substitute really (and always has been - whether 1997 or 1987).

Win'95 pre-emptively m-tasks, but I believe it gets messy if you start
using non-Win'95 programs (ie your old DOS or Win3.1 programs) at the same
time as some true Win'95 progs. Something that Rhapsody _would_ have if it
wasn't going to run older MacOS progrs in a separate space.
Win'95 also suffers quite badly if you don't have great chunks of RAM,
since any access to VM (as Mac users know) cause performance hits when
multi-tasking.

Having used all of the OS under contention (Win3.1, MacOS8, Win'95, AmigaOS
3.0) I can say that of them all, the Amiga multi-tasked the best and most
seamlessly. Win'95 isn't bad so long as you treat it nice, and MacOS and
Win3.1 are about as bad as each other.

It may well be that it's the programmers of Mac software who don't allow
nice multi-tasking. In fact, it's almost a certainty (try MSIE and get a
really complicated web page loading up. Then try and switch out to
_anything_ else while it's converting the html to a screen image. Good
luck!) But it's the fact the the OS uses co-operative m-tasking that
_allows_ this poor treatment in the first place. Look at the Finder. It can
quite happily get into situations where you can't do anything else until
it's finished (and I mean _anything_ else. I'm not referring to
multi-threading..)

The reason the Mac stops dead when you hold down the mouse button is that
it was _intentional_. Apple wanted the _user_interface_ to be as responsive
as possible (in the days of "slow" 68020 machines) so it gets priority over
other apps when you bring up menus etc.

Final word - I use MacOS over Win'95 for a lot of reasons. Multi-tasking
isn't one of them, and the sooner Rhapsody gets into full release mode and
wide acceptance the better off we'll all be....

--
Martin Cox <mc...@ihug.co.nz>
The Third Horizon Science Fiction E-Zine <http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~mcox/>
The (Incomplete) VirtualPC User's Guide <http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~mcox/vpc/>

Christopher Smith

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

>I wouldn't say it can't do it, just that it isn't guaranteed to do it
>reliably. It mainly depends on the applications you're running. In many
>cases, you _can_ do what you describe, but not always. (And how exactly
>did DOS "easily" run multiple programs at once and switch between them? I
>guess I missed something there.)

DOSSHELL (there were other products as well, but if I include them the Mac
zealots will say "no fair, it's not part of the OS" :)

Mathias Rongved

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

Les <l...@anim.vvvrfx.com> wrote:

> The only solution is to close and re-open some of the programs to allow the
> memory to fill in the missing holes.

Or to use a little application called 'MacOS Purge'.

--
mat...@bigfoot.com | http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Lagoon/6300/

M. Kilgore

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

Dwight Stewart <ste...@sccoast.net> wrote in article
<344017...@sccoast.net>...
> In other words, doing anything else, on any single-processor computer
> (PC or Mac), is going to slow down other tasks. The processor can only
> go so fast - and it does not speed up because you want to do something
> else at the same time. And it does not speed up because you want to
> claim your system of multi-tasking is better.
>

That doesn't follow in practice, Dwight. You're making the assumpt that all
tasks are processor intensive. Many aren't. As a matter of fact, this whole
buisness of multitasking pretty much developed to take avantage of
otherwise wasted time when a processor was interfacing to the outside world
via I/O op's. Most of the time, my computer isn't doing didly but waiting
for me to catch up.

> Yes, with the cooperative multi-tasking, a single program can hog all
> the processor time IF IT NEEDS IT. At the same time, other programs,
> with less intensive tasks, can use less processor time. This often
> works out quite well.

Yes, like if the programmer wants to make his program shine when compared
with others. Cooperative task switching only really works if all agree to
play by the rules. Even simple time share task switching is an improvement
over cooperative task switching.

>
> So, in the end, if we take all that I have said above into
> consideration, in the real world preemptive multi-tasking on the PC is
> not much of an improvement over the cooperative multi-tasking system
> used on the Macintosh (in fact, I would even say it is not really an
> improvement at all).
>

You guys are fooling yourselves, but it doesn't really matter anyway. Or

does it? The truth of the matter is that I haven't thought much about
multitasking in 20 years. I've always had it available when it counted. It
was only when I started messing with my wife's school Mac's that I started
realizing how much I depend on it with my trusty ol' win machine. It
shouldn't be a big deal to include preemptive tasking in MacOS and I'm a
little surprised to find that it hasn't been done already. Maybe too much
influence from the Apple][?

mark

JongAm Park

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

In comp.sys.mac.misc Jim Mueller <web...@globaldialog.com> wrote:

: To say that Win95 multitasks pretty poorly is not the whole truth
: either.

You are right.

: Practically all Windows applications being sold these days are
: 32 bit. That means if you run MODERN Windows applications on Win95,
: you're going to get PRE-EMPTIVE multitasking.

I'm sorry. No!
Although most of the commercial softwares are 32bits, it doesn't mean
that it support the preemptive multitasking.
And some dlls of Windows95 itself are 16bits.
For example, MSGSRV32.EXE, mmtask.tsk ( it's not dll ) and some MS
system toys are 16bits.
Check the system compoent with something like DLLMaster.
But although preemptive multitasking is not used on Windows95,
the resposiveness of Windows95 is quicker than that of the MacOS.
Probably the Windows95 uses different scheduleing method and different
default duration of time slice for each process.

: Now, I'm sure you're going
: to point out some obscure 16 bit software that is being sold now to
: refute that fact. But the point is, you would have to try very hard to
: screw yourself by purchasing 16 bit apps.

Please read above lines.

: Secondly, Win95 does not run
: on top of DOS.

You are right. To say on top of DOS can mislead people .
It's just for not so technical term.
Some lower level services of some part of Windows95 services are based on DOS
services, and some are not.
DOS is not so complete OS like the Windows95. Yes. DOS is DOS with some
other sevices for other than DISK OPERATING .

: It does have some remnent 16 bit DOS code so that you can
: run games like Quake, right out of Win95 without Shelling out to DOS.
: But this is an advantage, not a liability, because it gives the user
: more flexability and convenience.

Sure!

: If you run a 16 bit game application
: like Quake, the system does not PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask, but it DOES
: multitask.

Cooperative multitasking.

:Since all game action stops when you swith to another app
: while running quake, there is very little processor use by Quake anyway.
: I can run Quake, Netscape, be online, have a word processor going,
: without even realizing Quake is still there!

Well, it depend on the nature of the DOS program.

Anyway, thr original poster asks about the possibility of multitasking
on MacOS. The MacOS's multitasking does exist, and with MacOS8, it
is improved. For most general users who complains about the MacOS in
this newsgroup, the new multitasking model of MacOS8 is very good.
Because most jobs which users want to do multitask are Finder jobs.
So, to increase the Finder's multitasking capability is good for them.
Because the Finder is one program, it is multithreaded now.
And with multitasking among programs ( not threads ), cooperative multitaking
of MacOS not so bad.
For example, on my Windows95 machine with DOS terminal program, if I
download with the terminal program and set it as a background job, there
are problems like packet errors, etc. But on my 16Mhz 68030 Macintosh,
if I set my terminal program as a background job, it doesn't cause
packet errors, or similar communication errors. ( If the foreground job
doesn't take lots of CPU time. Anyway I don't use any 3D rendering
program. :) )

In this news group, there are too many biased people, and with restricted
knowledge. It's not bad. But it's problem when the person trys to
say "My idea is absolutely right, and yours is absolutely wrong. "

Well, people learns through lots of misunderstanding and by fixing it.

Who is the person who said "Macintosh doesn't multitask!"?

--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Jong Am Park | Make It Happen!
toma...@soback.kornet.nm.kr |
http://soback.kornet.nm.kr/~tomahawk | - Mariah Carrey
--------------------------------------------------------------

JongAm Park

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

In comp.sys.mac.misc Christopher Smith <drsm...@usa.net> wrote:

: Well then Joe, multitask me this (a screenshto would be nice :). This is

: what I am currently running:
: 4 Telnet Windows
: 2 IE4 Windows, both with some resonably complex web pages (animations, java
: etc)
: WinAMP (an mp3 player)
: 1 FTP downloading (200k/s)
: 2 Explorer windows
: MS Outlook, checking for new mail every 5 minutes
: Winzip, zipping up approx 200Mb of stuff
: EZ CD burning a CD at 2x

: All this on a relatively modest PC (p100 with 64Mb, a few IDE hard disks,
: burner on an el cheapo SCSI card).
: If your Mac can do this then I'll agree with you that a Mac can "multitask".

:) I can understand what your are trying to say.
Yes, the multitasking model of the MacOS is worse than the Windows95\NT.
On a Macintosh, you can do what you listed but with slower response time,
and more CPU time on the foreground jobs.
My 16Mhz 68030 Macintosh does multitask when there are some programs running.
I'm not talking about multi-program loading. I'm talking about
multitasking.
The background task will have less CPU time and, multitasking of the
Macintosh is worse than the current model of the Windows95 but it does
multitask.

You are an end user, right?
I can understand your definition of multitasking as an end user, but
technically speaking, whether it is poor or not, Macintosh multitasking
is multitasking.

Mr. Park, I have to disagree with you here. Win95 does PMT with 32 bit
apps. I do agree there are 16 bit applets and 16 bit dll's in
Win95....but if you use all 32 bit apps...Win95 will definetly PMT
--

Jim Mueller
Author Of WebNik
http://www.globaldialog.com/~webnik

Jim Mueller

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

Eric Bennett wrote:
>
> In article <343EC5...@globaldialog.com>, web...@globaldialog.com wrote:
>
> >Eric Bennett wrote:
> >
> >The whole truth: The Mac DOES NOT PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. That means
> >that a hungry application can steal most of the processing power from
> >the rest of the applications. Thereby slowing down the rest of your
> >system to a crawl. WinNT/Win95, both PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask.
>
> Gee whiz, it seems that although you are chastising me for not telling the
> "whole truth" as you see it, you are guilty of not telling the whole truth
> yourself. Hmmm...
>
> Win95 has poor preemptive multitasking. I can give you at least
> one case where Mac software multitasks flawlessly and Win95 chokes: MOD players.
>
> Try running Mod4Win under Win95 sometime. Put it in the background and
> start running some other software. Mod4Win will choke (it's a 16-bit app

Yes I agree 16 bit apps, (including Mod4Win) do not PMT in Win95. All 32
bit apps do PMT in Win95...that's why you don't want to run Mod4Win or
any other 16 bit app in Win95.

Jim Mueller

unread,

Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

Dwight Stewart wrote:
> Yes, with the cooperative multi-tasking, a single program can hog all
> the processor time IF IT NEEDS IT. At the same time, other programs,
> with less intensive tasks, can use less processor time. This often
> works out quite well.
>

> So, in the end, if we take all that I have said above into
> consideration, in the real world preemptive multi-tasking on the PC is
> not much of an improvement over the cooperative multi-tasking system
> used on the Macintosh (in fact, I would even say it is not really an
> improvement at all).
>

> Dwight Stewart

Except that an OS that supports PMT, i.e. Win95/NT, allows all
applications enough processor power to perform reasonabley well, instead
of allowing one app to hog it all (which is annoying). The mouse button
won't stop the other applications, either.
--

Anthony D. Tribelli

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

Dwight Stewart (ste...@sccoast.net) wrote:

: With either multi-tasking system, you are splitting up the processor's

: time between tasks. You only have one processor on any microcomputer.

:
: If you are performing one task with a computer, the processor will
: devote all its efforts to completing that task. If you are performing
: two tasks, that processor is going to have to split its efforts between
: those two tasks (and each task is going to take longer). If you're
: doing ten tasks, they are going to take even longer still.

You really need to read an OS textbook. :-) Sometimes two threads complete
in less time under a preemptive environment than under cooperative or
single-threaded environments. Consider blocking, and the timing and
overhead of manually invoking a switch. Issues like these are making the
Win95 to Mac port of a high performance multi-threaded app a major pain
since we want the Mac version to run quickly and smoothly, just like the
Win95 version already does. Can it be done? Yes, it just takes more work
under MacOS than Win95 sometimes. Remember that Apple's focus has been on
making the user's life easier, not the programmer's. I look forward to the
day when Mac users run Rhapsody rather than MacOS, it can't happen soon
enough IMHO.

Tony
--
------------------
Tony Tribelli
adtri...@acm.org

webstud

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

Kevin wrote:

> In article <nagleEH...@netcom.com>, na...@netcom.com (John Nagle)
> wrote:
>
> > Dwight Stewart <ste...@sccoast.net> writes:

> > > With either multi-tasking system, you are splitting up the
> processor's
> > >time between tasks. You only have one processor on any
> microcomputer.
> >

> > Dual Pentium Pro machines are quite common, and they run NT very
>
> > nicely.
> >
> > John Nagle
>
> ...As are dual- (and even quad-) processor 604e machines running MacOS
> very
> nicely, thank you.
>
> (BTW, at up to 800MHz (200x4) speeds)...
>
> Kevin

yes Kevin but the problem is those three other 604e are hardly ever used
on Mac OS.
And slightly on even some multi-processor apps like Photoshop.

A dual Pentium Pro on NT is quite decent. At least some of the stuff is
on the OS level.

-
webstud

webstud

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

Mathias Rongved wrote:

> Les <l...@anim.vvvrfx.com> wrote:
>
> > The only solution is to close and re-open some of the programs to
> allow the
> > memory to fill in the missing holes.
>
> Or to use a little application called 'MacOS Purge'.
>

Doesn't work. I lose about 20 megs whenever I close Netscape 4.0 in
MacOS 8 on any mac I use.

-
Sorry, you lose.

Webstud

webstud

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

> >
> > What you are describing is not multitasking - it is task switch ,
> which DOS
> > could do easily. To be multitasking you would actually have to be
> able to
> > *use* the programs simultaneously - something like start an mp3
> playing,
> > then burn a CD and do some word processing - all at the *same* time,
> which
> > the MacOS cannot do.
>

> I wouldn't say it can't do it, just that it isn't guaranteed to do it
> reliably. It mainly depends on the applications you're running. In
> many
> cases, you _can_ do what you describe, but not always. (And how
> exactly
> did DOS "easily" run multiple programs at once and switch between
> them? I
> guess I missed something there.)

I am sorry but Toast (practially the de-facto CD burning software) eats
up the cpu on the mac. Sorry, can't do anything else. PERIOD..

-
webstud

BTW, I think Toast rocks !!!

CATHERINE ALEXANDRA PAFORT

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

> > > The only solution is to close and re-open some of the programs to
> > allow the
> > > memory to fill in the missing holes.
> >
> > Or to use a little application called 'MacOS Purge'.
> >
>
> Doesn't work. I lose about 20 megs whenever I close Netscape 4.0 in
> MacOS 8 on any mac I use.

The operative word was 'Netscape' Really, what do you expect? Don't blame
the operating system for errors programmers make.

Catja,
who finds out over time that the horribly unstable WIN 3.1 is not, after
all, worse than NT. No, maybe it wasn't NT crashing, but if it doesn't
even get to the 'Start' menu, (or takes 5 minutes to open it and process
a single mouse-click) but from the user point of view, I don't care.
I'm used to switching on a computer and doing work. Using Windows (in all
flavours) is *quite* an education. At least I can now see why people hate
computers.
On my Mac, I select two apps and watch them open one after the other. On
NT, I can open one app, and open the next one while the first is still
loading. Total time for opening stays the same. So where's the big deal?

Joe Ragosta

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

In article <01bcd6d0$e7f27720$2cf510cf@mkilgore>, "M. Kilgore"
<mkil...@nospam.prysm.net> wrote:

Uhhh. The Application menu?

Or any of several third party utilities.

--
Regards,

Joe Ragosta
joe.r...@dol.net
Visit the Complete Macintosh Web Site
http://www.dol.net/~Ragosta/complmac.htm

Joe Ragosta

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

In article <343f5ba0...@news.pdq.net>, at*dcorn*a...@pdq.net (David
Corn) wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Oct 1997 01:29:08 -0600, x.hg...@slinknet.com (Kevin)

> wrote:
>
> >> Dwight Stewart <ste...@sccoast.net> writes:
> >> > With either multi-tasking system, you are splitting up the processor's
> >> >time between tasks. You only have one processor on any microcomputer.
> >>
> >> Dual Pentium Pro machines are quite common, and they run NT very
> >> nicely.
> >>
> >> John Nagle
> >
> >...As are dual- (and even quad-) processor 604e machines running MacOS very
> >nicely, thank you.
> >
> >(BTW, at up to 800MHz (200x4) speeds)...
>

> No, actually, that's wrong. When you have 4 604e CPUs in a Mac, under
> MacOS you also have 3 604e CPUs that are sitting around doing nothing.

Just further evidence that the Wintel advocates posting here don't have a
clue about anything related to the Mac.

--

Joe Ragosta

unread,

Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

In article <3442f24d...@news.pdq.net>, at*dcorn*a...@pdq.net (David
Corn) wrote:

> On Sat, 11 Oct 1997 12:39:28 -0600, iad...@earthlink.net (Ira Adams)
> wrote:
>
> >In my experience, starting with a Mac Plus, Macs have ALWAYS been able to
> >have several tasks going on simultaneously (as long as there was memory
> >available). It is true that each additional task slows the system a bit
> >more, and on slower Macs, the slowdown can make multitasking of very
> >limited usefulness.
>
> Don't confuse program loading (keeping many in RAM at once) with
> actual multitasking (having them all DOING something at once), which
> the Mac is very, very poor at doing.

Have you ever used a Mac? From your posts, it's not clear that you've been
within 30 meters of a Mac any time in the past 10 years.

Joe Ragosta

unread,

Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

In article <3443f27c...@news.pdq.net>, at*dcorn*a...@pdq.net (David
Corn) wrote:

> On Sat, 11 Oct 1997 12:39:34 -0600, iad...@earthlink.net (Ira Adams)
> wrote:
>
> >If Mac users spent as much time spreading disinformation in Windows groups
> >as Windows users seem to do here, I wonder how much we could affect Gates'
> >bottom line.
>
> Tell me about the disinformation, please.

Oh, perhaps like "Macs don't multitask"? The very FUD that started this thread.

Joe Ragosta

unread,

Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

In article <343FB0...@globaldialog.com>, web...@globaldialog.com wrote:

> Gary Curtis wrote:
> > >
> > > The whole truth: The Mac DOES NOT PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. That means
> > > that a hungry application can steal most of the processing power from
> > > the rest of the applications. Thereby slowing down the rest of your

> > > system to a crawl. WinNT/Win95, both PRE-EMPTIVELY multitask. With WinNT
> > > you have user options that will allow you to give the foreground
> > > application most of the processing power or allow all applications to
> > > share equally. There are other options as well. With Win95 I think the
> > > default is to share the processor equally.
> > > --
> >
> > Almost right! WinNT does a nice job of preemptive multitasking.
> > Win95 on the other hand is still a mongrel piece of garbage that
> > that is part DOS, part 16bit Windoze and part 32 bit Windoze. It can
> > preemptively multitask (pretty poorly) the 32 bit code as long as
> > no calls are made to the older 16 bit code. If any real mode drivers
> > or 16bit apps are running then they cooperatively multitask and
> > only give up the cpu when they are good and ready.

> >
>
> To say that Win95 multitasks pretty poorly is not the whole truth

> either. Practically all Windows applications being sold these days are

> 32 bit. That means if you run MODERN Windows applications on Win95,

> you're going to get PRE-EMPTIVE multitasking. Now, I'm sure you're going

> to point out some obscure 16 bit software that is being sold now to
> refute that fact. But the point is, you would have to try very hard to
> screw yourself by purchasing 16 bit apps.

OK.

But by eliminating 16 bit apps, you've just destroyed the software
availability argument.

There are somewhere around 10,000 to 15,000 Mac apps, depending on which
source you believe.

There is a larger number of Apps for Windows, but the majority are still 16
bit. Last time I checked (last spring), the number of 32 bit apps for
Windows was around 3,000. Let's say it's 5,000 today. Where's your vaunted
software availability advantage?

Michael B. Sneider M.D.

unread,

Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

In article <34407C98...@autobahn.org>, web...@autobahn.org wrote:

>Mathias Rongved wrote:
>
>> Les <l...@anim.vvvrfx.com> wrote:
>>

>> > The only solution is to close and re-open some of the programs to
>> allow the
>> > memory to fill in the missing holes.
>>
>> Or to use a little application called 'MacOS Purge'.
>>
>
>Doesn't work. I lose about 20 megs whenever I close Netscape 4.0 in
>MacOS 8 on any mac I use.

I'm aware of the Netscape memory fragmentation bug (at least aware that
some people have trouble with it), however I must say that I've never lost
1K of memory that I can detect. My "About This Computer..." always
displays the correct memory usage and totals.
Even after hitting multiple web sites, with or without Java applets, I
still experience no significant memory loss at people describe.
Could it be just a side-effect of various extensions installed on certain
configurations?
My PowerCenterPro with MacOS 8 (and many 3rd party extensions) never has
difficulty that requires the use of MacOS-Purge, rebooting, or any other
such measure.

Just my $0.02....

Michael

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael B. Sneider, M.D.
Email: MSne...@rust.net
Fax: (248) 547-0568
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"A man with one watch knows what time it is, a man with two watches is never sure..." - Albert Einstein

David J Richardson

unread,

Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

In article <61o9pa$e10$1...@nargun.cc.uq.edu.au>, "Christopher Smith"
<drsm...@usa.net> wrote:

>Well then Joe, multitask me this (a screenshto would be nice :). This is
>what I am currently running:
>4 Telnet Windows
>2 IE4 Windows, both with some resonably complex web pages (animations, java
>etc)
>WinAMP (an mp3 player)
>1 FTP downloading (200k/s)
>2 Explorer windows
>MS Outlook, checking for new mail every 5 minutes
>Winzip, zipping up approx 200Mb of stuff
>EZ CD burning a CD at 2x
>
>All this on a relatively modest PC (p100 with 64Mb, a few IDE hard disks,
>burner on an el cheapo SCSI card).
>If your Mac can do this then I'll agree with you that a Mac can "multitask".

I do this kind of thing all the time. It's not an issue. While some
programs are greedy and hog the processor, they're few and far between.

BTW, if you really do the 13 things above all at once, your brain and
reflexes would be having more troubles keeping up with all of it than the
computer would...

--
David J Richardson
bo...@crafti.com.au & http://www.crafti.com.au/~borad/
SOPHIE ALDRED (ACE IN DR WHO) MELBOURNE NOV 21-23 - ASK ME ABOUT IT!

Eric Bennett

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

In article <34406C...@globaldialog.com>, web...@globaldialog.com wrote:

>Except that an OS that supports PMT, i.e. Win95/NT, allows all
>applications enough processor power to perform reasonabley well,

Win95 doesn't do a terribly good job of multitasking...

> instead
>of allowing one app to hog it all (which is annoying). The mouse button
>won't stop the other applications, either.

And this has nothing to do with CMT. It *does* have to do with a Menu
Manager that hasn't been rewritten since 1984. :-( (There is a patch
called Menutasking Enabler that deals with this, but I don't think it
works under MacOS8, and it reveals some screen update glitches that
probably explain why Apple never updated the Menu Manager itself; programs
don't expect to have to redraw their windows *while* a menu is down).

--
Eric Bennett ( er...@pobox.com ; http://www.pobox.com/~ericb )
Cornell University
Viewers/Converters for common internet file formats at http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/xplat/xplat.html

Eric Bennett

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

In article <3443f27c...@news.pdq.net>, at*dcorn*a...@pdq.net (David
Corn) wrote:

>Tell me about the disinformation, please. I use both, I administered
>or have administered both, and I'd love examples of Win95 problems.
>I've given a Photoshop / StuffIt example already, under MacOS.

Mod4Win. The silly authors won't do a 32-bit version because, according
to a friend of mine who has problems with this software, "the current
version works fine."

That was last spring. Maybe they have come to their senses since then,
but this friend of mine was impressed the the Mac MOD players don't
experience corrupted audio when you put them in the background and start
doing processor-intensive tasks. (He used to run Linux, so I told him to
delete Win95 and put Linux back, but alas he claimed he needed Win95
software for some of his classes.)

Kevin Little

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

joe.r...@dol.net (Joe Ragosta) wrote:

>In article <343f5ba0...@news.pdq.net>, at*dcorn*a...@pdq.net (David

>Corn) wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 12 Oct 1997 01:29:08 -0600, x.hg...@slinknet.com (Kevin)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >> Dwight Stewart <ste...@sccoast.net> writes:
>> >> > With either multi-tasking system, you are splitting up the processor's
>> >> >time between tasks. You only have one processor on any microcomputer.
>> >>
>> >> Dual Pentium Pro machines are quite common, and they run NT very
>> >> nicely.
>> >>
>> >> John Nagle
>> >
>> >...As are dual- (and even quad-) processor 604e machines running MacOS very
>> >nicely, thank you.
>> >
>> >(BTW, at up to 800MHz (200x4) speeds)...
>>
>> No, actually, that's wrong. When you have 4 604e CPUs in a Mac, under
>> MacOS you also have 3 604e CPUs that are sitting around doing nothing.
>
>Just further evidence that the Wintel advocates posting here don't have a
>clue about anything related to the Mac.

Joe, you're on a vector to leave the quadrant called "loyal advocate"
to the one called "Irrational True Believer". The MacOS can no more
make use of more than one processor than CPM could. *SOME* special
apps that can be launced from MacOS can, but that's about it. With NT,
all apps can benefit.

-k

Kevin Little

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Oct 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/12/97

to

tyler....@yale.edu (Tyler Cheung) wrote:

>In article <343F80...@globaldialog.com>, web...@globaldialog.com wrote:

[ s n i p ]

>
>I guess it has been mentioned somewhere in this thread before that the
>Mac multitasks cooperatively - the reasoning behind this was, I suppose,
>that the Mac is intended primarily for personal use, and thus, some
>applications would merit much more processor resources than other less
>important ones, and would not benefit by being restricted by a preemptive
>scheme.

Well, the real reason is that in 1983, trying to shoe-horn everything
into a small ROM, 128K of RAM on a slow processor, good PMT was simply
much too hard to implement. The rest is history...

-k