On Thu, 18 May 2000, Eric J. Korpela wrote:
I don't think this is particularly a problem on
the Apple ][ series. IIRC,
all I/O is CPU intensive, so giving up the CPU during I/O will likely cause
the I/O to fail. Am I getting old? The details of the Disk ][ interface
are only faintly registering on my brain. Wasn't the input a bit at a time
with a software wait between bits, or am I confusing that with the tape
interface with its half-hardware/half-software 1-bit ADC?
Woz basically left a lot to software. He figured if anything could be
done in software then thjere was no need to implement it in hardware. As
such, the disk reads & writes are very CPU intensive.
Of course, none of this is a concern with cooperative
multitasking of BASIC
programs but if someone implements an interupt generator on a ][ for
multitasking purposes, it could become a concern.
Very much so. In fact it would turn this whole exercise into work, which
is not fun.