18 May
2000
18 May
'00
4:26 a.m.
Yes, having the app falg "blocked waiting IO" is important if you want the
best efficientcy. The difficult part is sometimes determining that and
keeping it sane.
Allison
On Thu, 18 May 2000, Richard Erlacher wrote:
You may find that your multitasking effort works
better if you don't accept
a time-slice when it's offered unless you're ready for it. Many times
(particularly with the rather slow disk I/O, etc) you are I/O bound or
waiting for another process to complete, it's better all around if you give
back the time-slice if you can't use it. If the time slice is small (e.g.
1/60 sec or so) it won't matter so much, but if it's long, i.e. 1/10 sec, or
so, you may want to avoid wasting it.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: <technoid(a)cheta.net>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 8:34 PM
Subject: Re: Cool AppleSoft BASIC trick I never thought of before
I have a prototype multitasking operating system
in 6502 machine language
for the Atari 8-bit series machines. Might be useful if I get the gist of
what this topic is about. The main purpose was to run several BASIC
programs simultaniously and give each a timeslice. The timeslice for each
task is adjustable.
If true timeshareing is not required then I'd look to Tom Hunt for his
AMAZING program "SNAPSHOT". Snapshot swaps images of ram to disk and
produces the effect of multitasking but the tasks on disk are of course
halted.... It is incredibly compatible. Tom Hunt is a God on 6502. He
mainly wrote in ACTION! - a C-like language unique to the Atari from OSS
(Optimized System Software - they used to be Sheperdson Microsystems and
wrote Atari Basic in addition to many other things in the 8-bit world).
Action had the benefit of a runtime package for distribution and very fast
program execution when compared to most other languages for the Atari.
Action! programs ran at near machine code speed.
--
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Jeffrey S. Worley
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Asheville, NC 28803
828-274-5781 0900-1800 weekdays
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
Technoid(a)Cheta.net
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