HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dtaylor@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Douglas A Taylor)
Subject: PC/GEOS FAQ List part 3/3 -- Updates to the FAQ
Followup-To: comp.os.msdos.pcgeos
Summary: PC/GEOS is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) developed by
         GeoWorks.  It runs on top of MS (or DR) DOS and provides
         a multitasking, multithreaded environment for any DOS
         machine with at least 512k of RAM and a hard disk.
Reply-To: doug-taylor+@osu.edu
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 12:38:59 GMT

Archive-name: pcgeos-faq/part3
Last-modified: modified September 25, 1992

I rewrote the sections on PC/GEOS version 2, using information 
recently posted here by John Wiley.  I also deleted the question about 
GEOS being released in April '92 with the capability to run DOS and 
Windows apps.  Nobody believes that any more, do they?

#Q:  When is PC/GEOS 2.0 going to be launched? 
#
#    According to Brian Dougherty (GW's CEO) at the San Diego Computer 
#    Fair, v2 will enter testing at the end of this month (Sept '92), 
#    and go to beta this Fall.  It sounds like we can expect it to be 
#    released (along with a slew of 3rd-party apps) sometime around 
#    late 1st quarter of '93.
#
#Q:  What new features will it include? 
#
#A: Here's what I've heard.  This info is comes from Brian Dougherty's 
#    talk at the San Diego Computer Fair in mid September '92 and on a 
#    demonstration given to the German GEOS Users' Club in March '92.
#
#    GeoWrite - The new version will have four times the features of 
#    the old version (according to BD), yet will be under 50k.  Some 
#    new features I've heard about include text wrapping around 
#    pictures and improved import & export functions
#
#    GeoComm - Won't be substantially improved, although a separate 
#    comm app will be commercially available.  [I hope they at least 
#    fix the term-emulation bugs and add Zmodem!]
#
#    Geoworks database and spreadsheet applications - The name of the 
#    database is not official, but the working name is GeoBase.  It 
#    will be able to import GeoDex documents and possibly other formats 
#    as well.
#
#    GeoAladdin - I assume that this is a PC/GEOS verison of the 
#    Aladdin navigation program for GEnie.
#
#    DOS task-switching - DOS task-switching capability is built into 
#    v2, but it will not multi-task DOS apps.  BD predicted that 
#    interest in running DOS apps will decline rapidly in the next two 
#    years.
#
#    Novell Netware - Netware code will be in v2, and GW will 
#    eventually not require DOS at all (v2 still does).
#
#    General stuff - more Video drivers, including SVGA and support for 
#    256 colors; color printing; "intelligent" print drivers.
#
-- 
   Doug Taylor                         |   Nothing real can be threatened.
   The Ohio State University           |   Nothing unreal exists.
   doug-taylor+@osu.edu                |            - A Course in Miracles
From: solovay@netcom.com (Andrew Solovay)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.pcgeos
Subject: Re: GWE vs. GW PRO?
Date: 16 Oct 92 18:51:25 GMT
Organization: International Irony League -- Death before smileys!

In article <1bmkgaINNds6@lester.appstate.edu> GRS00023@APPSTATE.EDU (Steve Williams) writes:
>
> As my subject line says...What is the difference in GW Pro and
> GW Ensemble?  I have GW Ensemble.  I have read various things about
> a Motif interface, but I can't seem to find anythin about it.  I got
> GW Ensemble Lite with a KLH 286, and ordered the upgrade to the full
> version (added GeoComm,GeoDraw, and America Online) for $34.95.
> 
All shipped versions of GEOS (Ensemble, Pro, Personal Office
System, etc.) use the Motif user-interface. You already have it.
-- 
Andrew M. Solovay       "Work is the curse of the drinking class."
solovay@netcom.com			--Wilde

#include <disclaimer.h>
From: dnielsen@letterkenn-emh1.army.mil (Daniel A Nielsen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.pcgeos
Subject: Re:  Naming Conventions
Date: 7 Oct 92 12:42:18 GMT


Well now, I see in the Sept Issue of "PC Sources" Tiger Soft is advertising
software by geosystems for windows.  It might even be called geotravel.

I hope V2.0 isn't delayed due to legal battles over them using "GEO" ;-) .

regards
dan
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 92 15:38:00 +0100
From: Rudi_Ferrari@con.fido.de (Rudi Ferrari)
Subject: location of icon files
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.pcgeos
X-Comment-To: ted@helios.ucsc.edu (Ted Cantrall)
Organization: Magic Point of C.O.N. Project Cologne  *FRG* 


 > I am probably missing the obvious, but I can't find where the icons are
 > stored. They are seperate files, aren't they? Can someone tell me where
 > they are located?            -ted-

Hi Ted!

They are not stored in separate files, but in the applications themself.
(Geowrite has itself the Icons for Geowrite and the GeoDocumnents, f.e.)

And those "only Icons"-applications, which can bound to Dosprograms,
Launchmakers, VM-Files, are in fact nothingelse that just very little
Geosapps (just doubleclick on them, and you will see).

Hope it helps
      ____
Lambo/Rudi
~~~~~

---
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.pcgeos
From: johnm@cory.Berkeley.EDU (John D. Mitchell)
Subject: Re: General Questions
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 09:25:32 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.014210.8512@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> cyj9h@csissun12.ee.Virginia.EDU (Charles Y. Choi) writes:
>
>In article <1992Oct8.211709.20039@netcom.com> solovay@netcom.com (Andrew Solovay) writes:
>>In 2.0, you can choose a location for *any* of the standard
>>directories (i.e. the Document, World, Font, Driver, whatever...
>>directories). In fact, several different directories can be
>>combined in one; for example, the FONT "directory" could be both
>>a directory on the hard disk (for commonly used fonts), and a
>>network directory for rarely-used fonts. The system would
>>automatically look in both for fonts.
>>
>
>  How do you know this?  Is this from the SDK docs?

This information is in the SDK Beta Documentation.

Andrew is one of the people creating the documentation for GEOS(tm)
development.

Have fun,
	John

P.S.	Remember that anything said herein by myself and any other person
	who is employed by GeoWorks is totally, completely our own
	personal opinions and in no way represents GeoWorks in any way.
From: kirstie@wrs.com (Kirstie Chadwick)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: porting curses to VxWorks
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 11:53:53 PDT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.112.16
Originator: daemon@vxw.ee.lbl.gov

Hello world,

I am looking for anyone who has ported the curses text-based graphical package or
any other text-based package to VxWorks. The package needs to run on the VxWorks target
to allow simple menu driven interfaces to be provided with only a dumb terminal
connected to a serial port. There is an example of curses ported to VxWorks in the
user archive, but it was written for 4.0.2. I was wondering if anyone had tried this
on 5.0.2, or had done their own port of this type of package for 5.0.2.

If anyone has any info on this kind of stuff, please let me know by email (kirstie@wrs.com)
or call me at (407)246-1490. Thanks in advance!!

Kirstie Chadwick
FAE
Wind River Systems
kirstie@wrs.com
(407)246-1490
From: hwajin@iphasew.iphasew.com (Hwa-Jin Bae)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: Re: TCP/IP & UDP timeouts
Date: 9 Oct 92 20:51:19 GMT
Organization: Interphase West, Santa Clara, CA
In-reply-to: sikora@looney.boeing.com's message of 8 Oct 92 20:07:06 GMT

>>>>> On 8 Oct 92 20:07:06 GMT, sikora@looney.boeing.com (Greg Sikora) said:

Greg> TCP/IP send.  I have set the socket to FIONBIO, and set
Greg> SO_SNDBUF and SO_RCVBUF to 6k.  My message total size is limit
Greg> to 1078 bytes on the network to keep the packets from being
Greg> fragmented.

try setting socket buffer sizes to something larger -- incrementally
all the way up to the maximum allowed value.  you're probably probing
for windows to open up when you experience the timeouts... you could
look at what's happening on the wire -- using etherfind command (sunos)
or sniffer or whatever -- and tune your apps: 1) find the optimal
message size (multiple of maximum segment size), 2) make the socket
buffers big enough to eliminate any zero window probing, retransmission,
etc.

	~hwajin
From: els@icf.hrb.com (Eric L. Schott)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: Re: MVME167 vs. SPARCII
Date: 16 Oct 92 11:43:31 EST
Distribution: comp
Organization: HRB Systems, Inc.

In article <BENNY.92Oct15170329@barn.frc.ri.cmu.edu>, benny@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Behnam Motazed) writes:
> I am trying to figure out whether a piece of software that involves
> lots of floating point operations, with minimal i/o would run faster
> or slower on a MVME167, running vxworks, vs. a SPARCII running SunOS.
> I know it is almost like comparing apples and oranges, and it is not
> fair to compare a dedicated real-time OS with Unix. However if you
> have had any experience running a simulation on your SPARCII, and then
> running it on the MVME target, then I certainly could benefit from you
> experience.
 
I cannot directly address your concerns, but I have the following
observations:
  1.  Dhrystone (integer) performance:  167 (VxWorks) with cache enables
      gets about 23 K Drys/s and a SparcStation IPX (SunOS) gets about
      3x K Dhrys/s (I cannot remember the exact number).
  2.  If you want super floating point performance, consider either
      a SKYbolt or Mercury 860 attached to either a Sun (SunOS) or
      a 167 (VxWorks).  I have done all four combinations.  They work.
-- 

Eric L. Schott,    HRB Systems, Inc.    814/238-4311     els@icf.hrb.com
  "As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible
   but more mysterious."                  Albert Schweitzer, "Paris Notes"
From: prb@aplexus.jhuapl.edu (Paul R. Bade)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: CSPI supercard and MV147
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 16:25:20 EDT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.112.16
Originator: daemon@vxw.ee.lbl.gov


Hello,

I am curious if there is anybody out there using a
CSPI supercard with a MV147 or MV167?

We recently purchased a supposedly "turn key" CSPI card
that we still hope to use with our MV167 boards.
But so far it has been far from turn key.
Our major problem has been the inability of CSPI to
answer questions about the CSPI supplied driver.
When compiling the CSPI code with the specified flags,
I had an unresolved symbol.  It took them 2 days
to tell me that they forgot to specify the -Dsun flag.
After several other problems, we still have
not been able to run any code on the supercard.
So I am really curious if there are any happy users
or if I should not waste my time.

		Paul Bade
		prb@aplexus.jhuapl.edu
From: don@mars.dgrc.doc.ca (Donald McLachlan)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: sync/async driver for SCC 8530
Keywords: sync/async SCC 8530
Date: 15 Oct 92 12:55:58 GMT
Reply-To: don@mars.dgrc.doc.ca
Distribution: all
Organization: Communication Research Centre

We are require a synchronous serial I/O driver for the SCC 8530. Before we start
doing unnecessary work, has any one written one yet?

I have written a sync/async one on RMX, but it will be so nasty to port, we would
be better off starting from scratch.

Thanks for any info you can provide, Don



---
Donald McLachlan			e-mail	don@mars.dgrc.doc.ca
Communications Research Centre / DRL	office	613-998-2845
3701 Carling Ave.,			lab	613-998-2423
Ottawa, Ontario				fax	613-990-7987
K2H 8S2
From: crispen <@ada3.ca.boeing.com:crispen@efftoo.boeing.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: re:  round-robin scheduling and taskDelay
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 10:36:42 CDT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.112.16
Originator: daemon@vxw.ee.lbl.gov

Yup, I know that the thread was about taskDelay(0) and delay(0), but
it started me thinking about the kernel and what preemption really
means in Wind.  Dangerous practice, I know, since it got me messed
up.  For instance, I never put two tasks at the same priority
because I'm scared of what might happen.

I mean, philosophically one either should or shouldn't swap two
equal-priority tasks at a scheduling event (I've been saying tick,
but let's consider the whole thing).  I think that there are pretty
fair arguments for going either way.  I can't figure out
from the documents or the code what actually happens, and I figured
I'd spend less time by asking than I would by digging.

So that's why I brought it up.

+-------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| Bob Crispen                   |   The owls are not what they seem    |
| crispen@foxy.boeing.com       +--------------------------------------+
| (205) 461-3296                |Opinions expressed here are mine alone|
+-------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
From: thor@surt.atd.ucar.edu (Richard E. Neitzel)
Subject: New IP address for archive
Followup-To: comp.os.vxworks
Organization: National Center for Atmospheric Research
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 16:45:05 GMT


Due to a physical move, we were required to change the IP address of thor.atd.ucar.edu. The
new IP address is:

128.117.78.139

If you tried to use the archive for the past few days and failed, please try again. If you
still cannot make contact, please check to see the above address is being used. Sites using
DNS may find that it takes a few days to get propigated (sp?).
-- 
Richard Neitzel thor@thor.atd.ucar.edu          Torren med sitt skjegg
National Center For Atmospheric Research        lokkar borni under sole-vegg
Box 3000 Boulder, CO 80307-3000	                Gjo'i med sitt shinn
303-497-2057                                    jagar borni inn.
From: benny@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Behnam Motazed)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: MVME167 vs. SPARCII
Date: 15 Oct 92 22:03:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: barn.BENNY.92Oct15170329
Reply-To: benny@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Ben Motazed)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Field Robotics Center, CMU

I am trying to figure out whether a piece of software that involves
lots of floating point operations, with minimal i/o would run faster
or slower on a MVME167, running vxworks, vs. a SPARCII running SunOS.
I know it is almost like comparing apples and oranges, and it is not
fair to compare a dedicated real-time OS with Unix. However if you
have had any experience running a simulation on your SPARCII, and then
running it on the MVME target, then I certainly could benefit from you
experience.

Thank you.
From: wbrown@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (Bill Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: Improperly initialized register in mv167 VMEchip2, vxw_5.0.2b
Date: 9 Oct 1992 19:38:36 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, California
NNTP-Posting-Host: 131.243.192.17
Keywords: bug mv167 VMEchip2 vxw_5.0.2b prescaler


We need a user-controllable timer for an application.  Since the normal
sysAuxClk functions are used by spy, it seemes like a good idea to use
one of the timers available in the VMEchip2.  There have been a number
of timer-like things posted lately, but I don't recall that any of them
used the timers in the VMEchip2.  But I have an open mind (in other words
things fall out as quickly as they fall in!) so I may have missed a pre-fab
solution.

After a bit of thrashing, I discovered that the prescaler for the two
tick timers in the VMEchip2 is not being set properly when vxWorks
initializes the chip.  The problem is that this same pre-scaler is
used for the various time-out timers (VME Access, etc.).

(Ref: MVME167/MVME187 Single Board Computers Programmers Reference Guide,
pp. 2-59 -> 2-64)

Here is the applicable section from

VOID sysHwInit ()
    .....

    /* set VMEbus global timeout to 64us
     * set VMEbus access timeout to 1ms
     * set local bus timeout to 64us
     * set watchdog timeout to 16ms
     */  

    *VMECHIP2_TIMEOUTCR         = (TIMEOUTCR_VGTO_64US  |
				   TIMEOUTCR_VATO_1MS   |
				   TIMEOUTCR_LBTO_64US  |
				   TIMEOUTCR_WDTO_16MS);
    ......

As I read the Motorola manual, the term " | 256 - BCLK" should be added to
the expression.

Have I misinterpreted something, or is this a real error?  (Perhaps this
has already been posted and I missed it)

Disclaimer:  These opinions are my own and have	    |
    nothing to do with the official policy or the   |  -bill
    management of L.B.L, who probably couldn't      |   wlbrown@lbl.gov
    care less about employees who play with trains. |
From: comtec!orincon!shelton@ucsd.edu (Shelton Darensburg)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: Synchronous SCSI
Date: 13 Oct 92 20:28:01 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.112.16
Originator: daemon@vxw.ee.lbl.gov

Has anyone tried to get scsi driver for 5.0.3 to work for
synchronous transfers with the western digital scsi controler
chip using the scsi transaction commands. Any code examples
would be greatly appreciated, thank you.
From: brp@verdix.com (Ben Priest)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: exabyte tape drive (or sun?)
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 13:15:56 pdt
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.112.16
Originator: daemon@vxw.ee.lbl.gov


I'm going to get some tape drives up with a force cpu30 board
(or at least I'm going to try). Any tips, advice or source?
I'm trying to get a sun scsi tape drive up then an exabyte tape
drive up.

thanks

Ben Priest
Verdix Western Operations
From: sikora@looney.boeing.com (Greg Sikora)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: TCP/IP & UDP timeouts
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 13:07:06 PDT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.112.16
Originator: daemon@vxw.ee.lbl.gov

Socket resource wait timeouts???

Greg Sikora
Boeing Defense and Space Group
Kent WA  (206) 477-1681

We are using vxWorks as a part of the VADSworks ada runtime system.  I am
trying to do TCP/IP and UDP/IP type socket I/O.  Most of the time the
system appears to run with normal ?? interframe times.  Interlaced 
within there are timeouts that I am experiencing on send, recv, sendto 
and recvfrom calls.  The timeouts last for about 1000 milli seconds with a
very good consistency.  Occasionally, some of the delays only last for
30-90 milli seconds.  I am blocked on any of the calls, but mostly on the 
TCP/IP send.  I have set the socket to FIONBIO, and set SO_SNDBUF and 
SO_RCVBUF to 6k.  My message total size is limit to 1078 bytes on the
network to keep the packets from being fragmented.  We are using the Force
SPARC1e card.

Is there anyone that can give me some help as to what is happenning and 
why the call times out for almost exactly 1 sec??

Thanks

Greg Sikora
From: leonid@amil.co.il (Leonid Rosenboim)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: LLC, T-R & FDDI
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 10:35:21 IST
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.112.16
Originator: daemon@vxw.ee.lbl.gov

I am in a need to acquire or develop a Token-Ring driver for VxWorks.
If anybody knows of such a driver (for any chip or board) please share
your information with me.

Alternatively, FDDI also uses LLC (IEEE 802.2) in a way similar to T-R,
therefore an FDDI driver may be helpful in the development process.
Please advise if a public domain driver exists (for any hardware) or where
one can buy an FDDI driver source without an intent of using it on an FDDI
hardware.

Thanks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Leonid Rosenboim                                                  |
| Freelance Consultant                   P.O.Box 13652, Azur ISRAEL |
| Computer Systems and Networks          Phone/Fax: +972-3-5561-661 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
From: don@mars.dgrc.doc.ca (Donald McLachlan)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: sync/async driver for SCC 8530
Date: 15 Oct 92 12:55:25 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.112.16
Originator: daemon@vxw.ee.lbl.gov


We are require a synchronous serial I/O driver for the SCC 8530. Before we start
doing unnecessary work, has any one written one yet?

I have written a sync/async one on RMX, but it will be so nasty to port, we would
be better off starting from scratch.

Thanks for any info you can provide, Don



---
Donald McLachlan			e-mail	don@mars.dgrc.doc.ca
Communications Research Centre / DRL	office	613-998-2845
3701 Carling Ave.,			lab	613-998-2423
Ottawa, Ontario				fax	613-990-7987
K2H 8S2
From: Roeber <fjr@ssd.ray.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: re:  round-robin scheduling and taskDelay
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 22:08:26 -0400
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.112.16
Originator: daemon@vxw.ee.lbl.gov


Stan Schneider writes:

> It seems that calling taskDelay(0) under round-robin scheduling should cause
> the calling task to relinquish the processor in favor of the next in the
> queue.  This doesn't seem to be documented anywhere I could find.  Does anyone
> have experience with this?  I'd rather not spend too much time writing test
> code...

As this is an important type of operation to have work correctly I checked
the code for taskDelay.  It *does* work corectly in that a taskDelay(0)
(or more properly, taskDelay(NO_WAIT)) moves the current task from the
beginning of the list of ready tasks at its priority level to the end of
the list of tasks at the same priority.   Fred

    _______________________________________________________
   |  Fred J Roeber,  Raytheon Submarine Signal Division   |
   |  1847 West Main Road,  Mail Stop 188                  |
   |  Portsmouth, RI  02871-1087  (401) 847-8000 (X4205)   |
   |                                                       |
   |                   fjr@ssd.ray.com                     |
   |_______________________________________________________|
From: chris@wrs.com (Chris Ford)
Subject: Re: Improperly initialized register in mv167 VMEchip2, vxw_5.0.2b
Keywords: bug mv167 VMEchip2 vxw_5.0.2b prescaler
Organization: Wind River Systems, Inc.
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 20:32:26 GMT

Bill,

>VOID sysHwInit ()
>    .....
>
>    /* set VMEbus global timeout to 64us
>     * set VMEbus access timeout to 1ms
>     * set local bus timeout to 64us
>     * set watchdog timeout to 16ms
>     */  
>
>    *VMECHIP2_TIMEOUTCR         = (TIMEOUTCR_VGTO_64US  |
>                                   TIMEOUTCR_VATO_1MS   |
>                                   TIMEOUTCR_LBTO_64US  |
>                                   TIMEOUTCR_WDTO_16MS);
>    ......
>
>As I read the Motorola manual, the term " | 256 - BCLK" should be added to
>the expression.

WRS is aware of this bug (ref. SPR #1578) and it will be fixed in the
next release of the Motorola MVME167 Board Support Package.  Also in the
same register, we've found it useful to increase the VMEbus global timeout
for multi-board configurations.

Please try:

    *VMECHIP2_TIMEOUTCR         = (TIMEOUTCR_VGTO_256US |
                                   TIMEOUTCR_VATO_1MS   |
                                   TIMEOUTCR_LBTO_64US  |
                                   TIMEOUTCR_WDTO_16MS) |
                                   ((256 - BCLK) & 0xff);

Wishing you and your VxWorks application well...

-Chris Ford
 Engineer
 Wind River Systems
From: Roeber <fjr@ssd.ray.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.vxworks
Subject: re:  round-robin scheduling and taskDelay
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 13:05:48 -0400
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.112.16
Originator: daemon@vxw.ee.lbl.gov

Bob Crispen writes:
>  OK, you guys have confused the hell out of me.  Is there always a
>  scheduling event on the tick (minus a sysClkDisable, or whatever)?
>  If there are two tasks of equal (highest) priority does the kernel
>  swap them on the tick?  I'm so confused!

There is an option that allows you to set up things such that equal
priority tasks alternate use of a processor based on elapsed time.  See
the discussion for round robbin scheduling in kernelLib(1).  In this case
equal priority tasks are switched after they run for a certain
amount of time (actually after being active for some number of clock ticks).
Fred