HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gaia@wam.umd.edu (L. Anathea Brooks)
Subject: Re: NeXT vs Mac (Yes, Again)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 20:49:03 GMT

In article <1993Jan21.134543.10317@almserv.uucp> bsim@quark (Ben Sim) writes:
>Just a few musings after I've been following the previous threads:
>
>My equipment first:
>I work daily on a NeXTstation TurboColor (33MHZ '040/32 Megs Ram/400 Meg  
>HD) with 16" Trinitron monitor. At home I have an SE/30 with 8 Meg Ram.
>
>Observations:
>I really, really like UNIX!! The NeXT is a terrific development  
>environment. I haven't seen anything yet that matches the power of  
>Interface Builder. It seems that Microsoft, Borland, Symantec and Apple  
>are coming out in the near future with products that will be "like"  
>Interface Builder. 
>
>The main problem with NeXT is that it is only seamless within its own  
>environment (a generalization, yes). NeXTStep 486 is a step in the right  
>direction; we'll see when it ships.
>
>I really love the Mac, but the OS is showing its age. We need preemptive  
>multitasking now. We need AppleScript now. While we're at it, we need the  
>PowerPC now. The NeXT IMHO is what the Mac should have been and what the  
>Mac is heading towards.
>
>Please no flames. If you don't have anything constructive to say other  
>than "My Mac is better than your NeXT" don't respond. We need to have  
>constructive dialog between reasonable people who have worked on the NeXT  
>and the Mac. Computers are not a religious issue (well, maybe to some  
>people who don't have a life).
>
>Ben
>
>***
>Benjamin Sim (bsim@fnma.com)
>Fannie Mae
>3900 Wisconsin Avenue NW
>Washington DC 20016-2899



I quite agree. I switched to a greyscale Turbostation last May and
have never looked back... Of course, the software costs are lower
with the Mac, I still do my OCR work with it (packages are available
on the Next but aren't yet as good) and I occasionally miss the ease
of installation and de-installation...

However as someone said, a NeXT can be like a Mac with a truck
engine (yes, I've used A/UX). NeXTstep is marvelous. 

If only we had even 1/5 the software available for the Mac! Some
of you developers, switch over! All the bases aren't covered!!


Brooks

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: bgrubb@dante.nmsu.edu (GRUBB)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Mac vs NeXT was Re: Need to convince boss 486's are *not* w
Date: 27 Jan 93 20:31:27 GMT
Organization: New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM

tzs@carson.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes:
>>zmonster@athena.mit.edu (Eric M Hermanson) writes:                      
>>NeXT has been using SCSI-II since 1989.                              
               
>That's a pretty good trick, considering that the SCSI-2 specification was 
>still in a massive state of flux in 1989.
I thought as much.  Apple did something like this with SCSI when it first came
out.  Problems that have resulted from compatablity with this old design
would expain why Apple was carefully in its development of the 68040 and SCSI-2
and waited to Oct of 1991 to reliece the machine that contained both of these
{The Quadra 900}.
The early use of the 68040 in the NeXT had some problems {Due to some 
design errors in the very early batches} If SCSI-2 in the NeXT was made
when the Specs were in flux then it is an almost a certainty that the NeXT
SCSI-2 interface has some of the same problems that the Mac SCSI-1 interface
had until the Quadras {It does not have the FULL speed of the interface nor
all the features of the interface.}  So for features the order is the following
Mac SCSI-1{Most specs and features, slower through put}
SCSI-1 {ALL specs; an add on in most latter IBM machines}
NeXT SCSI-2{Most specs and features, slower through put}
SCSI-2 {All specs; in Quadra 900 and 950}
Being FIRST does not being BEST {Apple found this out the hard way with SCSI-1
and NeXT with the 68040 FPU problem.} Being patient enough to let others set 
the specs or find problems with the hardware is a better way to{This is likly
why Apple is letting IBM reliece its PowerPC 601 9 to 6 months ahead of them;
to find out what the bugs may exist in the PowerPC chip or in PowerOpen.}
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: bsim@quark (Ben Sim)
Subject: NeXT vs Mac (Yes, Again)
Organization: Fannie Mae
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 13:45:43 GMT

Just a few musings after I've been following the previous threads:

My equipment first:
I work daily on a NeXTstation TurboColor (33MHZ '040/32 Megs Ram/400 Meg  
HD) with 16" Trinitron monitor. At home I have an SE/30 with 8 Meg Ram.

Observations:
I really, really like UNIX!! The NeXT is a terrific development  
environment. I haven't seen anything yet that matches the power of  
Interface Builder. It seems that Microsoft, Borland, Symantec and Apple  
are coming out in the near future with products that will be "like"  
Interface Builder. 

The main problem with NeXT is that it is only seamless within its own  
environment (a generalization, yes). NeXTStep 486 is a step in the right  
direction; we'll see when it ships.

I really love the Mac, but the OS is showing its age. We need preemptive  
multitasking now. We need AppleScript now. While we're at it, we need the  
PowerPC now. The NeXT IMHO is what the Mac should have been and what the  
Mac is heading towards.

Please no flames. If you don't have anything constructive to say other  
than "My Mac is better than your NeXT" don't respond. We need to have  
constructive dialog between reasonable people who have worked on the NeXT  
and the Mac. Computers are not a religious issue (well, maybe to some  
people who don't have a life).

Ben

***
Benjamin Sim (bsim@fnma.com)
Fannie Mae
3900 Wisconsin Avenue NW
Washington DC 20016-2899
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: cole@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Sandra Stewart-Cole)
Subject: Re: Mac vs Win NT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 23:47:20 GMT

In <1k6ca1INN7v6@emx.cc.utexas.edu> ifbb657@emx.cc.utexas.edu (Douglas Floyd) 
writes:


>What are the advantages of Win NT over System 7, and the other way
>around?

System 7 exists in the real world. NT has good press and the power of MS behind
it. Seriously though, it is NOT realistic to ask such a question precisely 
because NT hasn't been released yet, and unless it manages to be seriously 
optimized from the current betas to where it can run on a midrange machine, 
won't even be a serious competitor to its own ancestor. Maybe some folks will 
find 12Mb a reasonable minimum RAM but a lot of people won't. Also, you cannot
depend on NT living up to it's press. Maybe it will do everything MS has 
promised for it, but I would not count on it until you have a release version.


>This is assuming that MS has not pushed back the ship date until the next
>contraction/expansion of the universe :-).

Last I heard, they were asking Dr. Hawking how long they had to the Last Date:)

>I know that NT should be pretty virus resistant because of its protected
>mode providing you do not log on as "admininstrator" all the time.

The people I know with Unix systems as personal systems routinely use them as 
the superuser. I cannot think that NT will be different.

>PS:  When WILL NT ship, and would it work with a 386-33?

My understanding is that the betas do, but not real speedily. Of course the 
current beta reportedly requires a minimum 12Mb RAM just to get to a desktop. 
That will knock a lot of machines out, likely including most 386 machines as 
currently configured.
From: tinsel@uiuc.edu (Thomas Aaron Insel)
Subject: Re: YA Mac horror story
Originator: tai50080@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Reply-To: tinsel@uiuc.edu
Organization: Masticating Illini, Urbana Illinois
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 23:53:20 GMT

gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn) writes:

> cj00+@andrew.cmu.edu (Carl B Jabido) writes:
> > The stupid cluster people disabled cntrl-openapple-reset, so I had to
> > turn it off and on.  No big deal, but why they did it is still beyond
> > me.

> Hmm.  Do you mean command-option-escape perhaps?  Or are you thinking that  
> the magic key sequence used by PC's are also the magic key sequence used by  
> every other machine on the planet?

PC's use ctrl-alt-delete, the Apple II used ctrl-openapple-reset, and if
I remember some Macs use command-option-reset.  The IIci has a hardwired
"programmer's key" in the front panel of the case, so it doesn't have such
a key combination.
-- 
Thomas Insel (tinsel@uiuc.edu)
  "Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing." -- A. Einstein
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: lsr@taligent.com (Larry Rosenstein)
Subject: Re: YA Mac horror story
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Organization: Taligent, Inc.
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 20:55:34 GMT

In article <kfNAq3u00VqJ0_SUkW@andrew.cmu.edu>, cj00+@andrew.cmu.edu (Carl
B Jabido) wrote:
> 
> me we'd be using Object Pascal Genie for the class (surprisingly written
> here at CMU on Macs, by a bunch of computer illiterates).  Into my head

I know a couple of people who worked on Pascal Genie.  They are not a bunch
of computer illiterates.

> popped up images of dialog boxes like "Cannot quit, not enough memory. 
> Push okay."  Or even, "Low on memory, some functions will be disabled,"

You're right that there's no excuse for not being able to quit.  That's a
bug in the program.

The "Low on memory, some functions will be disabled" is *not* a bug.  This
is a standard feature of MacApp (used to write Pascal Genie).  The point is
that if available memory is low, then commands that use memory (like Paste)
will be disabled.  

> after just opening a 29000 byte program.  I didn't even run it.  Didn't
> even edit it!  By the way, this is all on a IIci with 8 megs of Physical
> ram.

Well, someone might have messed with the application's partition size. 
Also Genie isn't just a compiler, so you can't necessarily say that a 29K
source file is trivially small.

> Okay, I traverse the server till I get to my class section.  Wow, Mac's
> built in network is slower than my NFS connection across the country;

It depends on whether the Mac is on Ethernet or not.

Larry Rosenstein
Taligent, Inc.

lsr@taligent.com
From: tjhendry@queen.mcs.drexel.edu (Jonathan Hendry)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Need to convince boss 486's are *not* way to go...
Date: 23 Jan 93 01:12:27 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Drexel University, Dept. of Math. and Comp. Sci.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4


 
bgrubb@dante.nmsu.edu (GRUBB) writes:
: howard@netcom.com (Howard Berkey) writes:
: >I'll take that bet.  The NeXT's graphics are faster on its 68040 than
: >the Quadra's are on its 68040.
: WHICH Quadra?
: >Note also that the ci has 8 bit color.
: WRONG! The IIci has 32-bit color even though people normally only use 8-bit
: of it at a time. ALL Present Macs have 32-bit color even though most monitors
: display either in 2-bit{black and white} or 8-bit mode.
: >The NeXT has 16.  It's still much faster.
: Of course the NeXT is managing 65536 color while the mac is handling
: 16777216 colors AND a 8-bit Alpha chanel that is partly accessable in 
: 8-bit mode {SuperPaint 3.0 uses it.} regardless of what the monitor shows.
: This is 3 month old news from Mac & IBM info{Now on suxex as 
: mac-ibm-compare.txt.}

Wrong! The Mac is only pumping 8 bit data to the screen.
Wrong! The alpha channel is nonstandard on Macintosh. Big deal that SP3.0 
uses alpha. What happens if you take that alpha'd image and try to use it 
somewhere else? Splat!

What did you have for breakfast? WRONG! You had cheerios with Milk!

Mor-ton!

--
Jonathan W. Hendry
Drexel University College Of Information Studies
Anderson Financial Systems "Programmer-in-Exile" :)
<set loose the marmosets!>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: rau@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (-=/[ drow ]/=-)
Subject: micr0sof+ et(.
Keywords: nene microsoft mac 
Organization: menzoberranzan computer networking 
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 11:56:01 GMT

	seen on alt.cyperpunk:

 . SLMR 2.1a . With code like Microsoft's, who needs viruses???

	.sig of (Tommy Usher)

0h \/\/oW +h1s gr0up h/\s b(0m3 S() g0sh-[>arN Ma(-Ad\/0(acy, 1 d0n'+ th1nk
1 (an +ak3 !t any M0r3.  l00k, +h3 Mac ain'+ TH3 P3RFE(T C0MPUT3R, bu+ it
IMnotsoHO i+'s tH3 be5T out TH3RE righ+ N0W, an[> a H3LL 0f /\ l0t b3tter
th/\n +h3 sh1t in +he MS-D0s wyrl[> (al+hough I'lL a[>m1t OS/2 is n1ce, bu+
h3ll, i+ sh0uld b3 s1nc3 it's a d3vel0pm3nt of th3 Mac OS).  /\n[> i+ w1lL
(onT1nu3 t0 ge+ B3TTeR and SN/\Z13R or it d1es w1th th3 d1noSaur5 an[>
th3 po1nt w1ll b3 m00t, dis(uss3d by ag1ng sag3s in th3 l1ght of th3ir //e
gr33n scr33ns.  jus+ a f3w th0ugh+s r3nd3red 1n a f0rma+ ab0ut 90%% 0f y0u
w1ll tr/\sh anyw/\y, r1ght?  h3ll w1th it.
-- 
-=/[ drow ]/=-		forget i'm a fish?  why on earth would i want to...
From: terry@squid9.cuc.ab.ca (Terry Wilcox)
Subject: Re: Need to convince boss 486's are *not* way to go...
Reply-To: terry@squid9.cuc.ab.ca
Organization: Not Really, Inc.
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 19:13:59 GMT

In article <1jhck1INN507@pith.uoregon.edu> rtaylor@cie.uoregon.edu (Russ  
Taylor) writes:
> Question:
> 
> If NeXT is so much more godawful fast than a Mac (which it isn't) then why
> is a 68030 Mac suitable for almost anything, while an 030 NeXT is so slow
> it got cancelled?  BTW, how fast are those 486s with NeXTstep going to run
> DisplayPostcript?  Not very, I'd wager.

Consider the 030 NeXT to have been upgraded. The Mac IIfx got cancelled.
Some Epson 486's are faster than the NeXTstation Turbo Color. Display
Postscript (two words) doesn't seem to be a major factor in speed or lack
thereof. How fast will your 030 Mac run QuickDraw GX (if at all)?

> From my experience, A NeXT running on a chip that should be a least 4 times
> as fast as a Mac runs about the same speed in graphics, which is more than
> enough to push me towards a quadra, if I could afford it.

Are you saying the NeXT 040 should be 4 times as fast as a Quadra 040, or
that the NeXT 040 should be 4 times as fast as a Mac 030? I have five
applications open right now, UUCP running in the background, and a bunch
of other Unix stuff going on (I never see it) and my NeXTstation still
feels as fast as an SE/30 running System 7.0. Speed is subjective.

> And saying 484 NeXTstep won't be buggy because NS3.0 wasn't buggy is like
> saying MS Word 5.0 wasn't buggy because 4.0D wasn't (actually, it was),
> or that Wordperfect for x will run well on y because it has been proven
> on x.  Really stupid assumption and/or logic.

Kind of like saying System 7.1 isn't buggy because 7.0 wasn't. :)

Terry Wilcox
-- 
Terry Wilcox		| 'Next to the originator of a good sentence 
terry@squid9.cuc.ab.ca	| is the first quoter of it.'
NeXTmail welcome	|  - RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: bgrubb@dante.nmsu.edu (GRUBB)
Subject: Re: Mac vs NeXT was Re: Need to convince boss 486's are *not* w
Organization: New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 23:54:32 GMT

zmonster@athena.mit.edu (Eric M Hermanson) writes:
>The LIST price for a NeXTSTATION Turbo with 8megs of memory and 250 MB hard
>drive is only $5995 (street is much cheaper) AND if you are a developer
>you own the rights to the full suite of NeXT development tools, so what
>is your point?
My point was that WHAT the config and type of machine used and added feature
were should be used in compairison.
Your article give the amount of info that compairisons should provide.
The cost of added software and hareware and what can be accompliced with
it and some drawbacks.
These postings of a '~$17000 Quadra that does not measure to a NEXT at the
same price' and NOT give the configs is stupid.  A ~$17000 Quadra config
could include
~7000 - Quadra 950 8M/250MB
  includes SCSI-2{~4MB per sec throughput; Mac OS needs to be rewritten to
use it at that speed and thats NOT including wide and fast. Third party venders
provide some of the patches needed.}
~3000 - Radius Rocket 040/33 {TWO quadra 950s CPUs}
~1000 - A/UX 3.0
~1000 - C compliler
~2000 - 1GB {1000MB} external harddrive SCSI-2 compatable
~1600 - 8 4MB SIMMS; 4 in the Quadra 4 in the Rocket
~2000 - AppleShare Server
Total ~18000, config 28MB/20MB//250MB/1GB server and SCSI-2 interface and 
through put {While 7.1 is does not support SCSI-2 as SCSI-2, I believe A/UX
3.0 DOES.  System 7.1 uses SCSI-2 as a fast SCSI-1 with two 7 device chains.
While SCSI-2 can handle up to 10 devices of one chain A/UX only allows 7
for Mac System compatablity. :-(}

Questions:  Does the NeXT have SCSI-2 built in as does the Quadra 950, are 
there Rockets other that allow dual CPU processing for the NeXT, EtherNet
Phase-2 support built in?  If so then the NeXT does beat the pants off
the Mac, if not then I say they are about even.
From: howard@netcom.com (Howard Berkey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Need to convince boss 486's are *not* w
Date: 25 Jan 93 23:40:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: netcom.1993Jan25.234058.29601
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)

In article <1993Jan25.211517.10875@gallant.apple.com> bell@apple.com (Mike Bell) writes:
>In article <1993Jan25.001821.28836@netcom.com>, howard@netcom.com (Howard 
>Berkey) writes:
>
>> 
>> In article <1993Jan23.205949.21863@gallant.apple.com> bell@apple.com (Mike 
>Bell) 
>> writes:
>> >
>> >On the Mac, we call it ClarisWorks......
>> >
>> >
>> 
>> BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!   Oh, PLEEZ!!!!!
>> 
>> Why don't you call Taligent and tell them it's time to move away from
>> a doc-centered paradigm because one lame integrated Mac app shares
>> document types with several modules within the SAME PROGRAM?
>> 
>> This is the trailing edge of oop.  NeXTSTEP, Taligent, and others are
>> looking at object exportability... the OS managing one program using
>> another's object types.
>> 
>> -H-
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
>> Howard Berkey						   howard@netcom.com
>> 		"I AM the Lizard Queen" - Lisa Simpson
>> .... .. ...   ... .. ...   ... .. ...    ... .. ...   ... .. ...   ... .. 
>..
>
>
>It was supposed to be a joke...I just couldn't resist.  The "religious" flame 
>wars in this group are getting so out of hand......
>

No way!  This is an ADVOCACY group!  d;)

-- 
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Howard Berkey						   howard@netcom.com
		"I AM the Lizard Queen" - Lisa Simpson
... .. ...   ... .. ...   ... .. ...    ... .. ...   ... .. ...   ... .. ...
From: mwalker@novell.com (Mel Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Need to convince boss 486's are *not* w
Date: 22 Jan 93 22:42:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: mwalker.mwalker-220193154149
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Distribution: world
Organization: Novell, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: chezmoto.ai.mit.edu

In article <1993Jan22.192352.21285@athena.mit.edu>, zmonster@athena.mit.edu
(Eric M Hermanson) wrote:
> Archetype Inc. is releasing the Archetype Document Engine for NeXT computers
> next month.  This is a document centered engine where several tools work
> togehter to complete a single document (i.e. you have a spelling tool to
> check the spelling, text tool to write the text, graphics tool to set the
> graphis, page layout tool to set up the docuement form, etc).  Document
> based computing is here TODAY, 2 years before Taligent even ships.  And it
> is only available on NeXTSTEP.

I thought that PenPoint has been totally document oriented from the start.
Is this a misconception on my part?

Besides, how can something be here TODAY, when it's not even released until
next month? :-)

----------------------------------------------------------------
Mel Walker                                    mwalker@novell.com
All opinions expressed are of the author.
Novell, Inc. is not responsible for the content of this article.
From: mcgredo@prism.CS.ORST.EDU (Don McGregor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Need to convince boss 486's are *not* w
Date: 23 Jan 1993 01:12:40 GMT
Organization: Oregon State University, Computer Science Dept.
NNTP-Posting-Host: prism.cs.orst.edu

In article <f-k39qq@rpi.edu> johnsd2@lib102.its.rpi.edu.its1 writes:
>
>They do if they want to change the login tiff. If the preferences
>panels can do this, then I will withdraw my objection.
>
Oh, fer crying out loud.  Somebody write a friggin applet to do this.
Should take an hour or two.  Would have full NeXTSTEP compliance, a
correct open panel, correct mouse button behavior, and probably
drag and drop.

(My NeXT is getting packed up this weekend or i'd do it myself.)

-- 
Don McGregor             | "Adventure without risk is Disneyland."
mcgredo@prism.cs.orst.edu|       --Douglas Coupland
From: ifbb657@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Douglas Floyd)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Computer abbrivations
Date: 24 Jan 1993 20:07:38 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
Distribution: world
Reply-To: ifbb657@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Douglas Floyd)
NNTP-Posting-Host: donald.cc.utexas.edu
Originator: ifbb657@donald.cc.utexas.edu


Has anyone heard a better abbrivation than this for Macintosh?

Makes Applications Crash If Not The Operating System Halted

Any good ones for Win NT, or Microsoft?

-- 
       ifbb657@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu  (Douglas Floyd)
       Disclaimer:  I speak for myself        Please, no NeXTMail at this time.

Windows NT is a great reason to WISH for a destructive virus.
From: wrob@unixg.ubc.ca (Robert Wong)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: rtaylor@cie.uoregon.edu (Russ Taylor)
Date: 21 Jan 1993 09:15:01 GMT
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: unixg.ubc.ca

In article <ocaoXB1w165w@bbs.draco.bison.mb.ca> jkalanuk@bbs.draco.bison.mb.ca (Jeremy Kalanuk) writes:
>I've use a couple nexts, and I wasn't very impressed.  The speed is 
>nothing compared to a Quadra because of the overhead of the NeXT os.  The 
>interface is annoying, as well as the two button mouse.  There is nowhere 
                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>near as much software as their is for the mac either.  Mac rules!

Please note that there is a new mouse & keyboard out.  They are both ADB
devices.  The new mouse is still two buttoned.  You have two options for the
second button.  You can use the second button to pop-up the menus, or you
can get it to act like just like the first button.  Thus, I do not view the
NeXTmouse(*tm) as evil.
 RWW.


-- 
Robert W. "What!?! I've-been-tying-my-shoelaces-backwards-all-my-life?" Wong Jr.
wrob@unixg.ubc.ca (ASCII only)
From: maynard@leah.msc.cornell.edu (Maynard J. Handley)
Subject: Re: Need to convince boss 486's are *not* way to go...
Organization: Cornell-Materials-Science-Center
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 05:46:08 GMT

In article <C17pFB.EwK@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, tinsel@uiuc.edu (Thomas Aaron
Insel) writes:
>zmonster@athena.mit.edu (Eric M Hermanson) writes:
>
>> If they were to make the MacOS pre-emptive, all the current software
>would
>> have to be rewritten to accomodate it.  You will never ever ever see 
>> pre-emptive multitasking on a Macintosh.
>
>No, it wouldn't.  Most mac software works just fine under A/UX, which
>does
>offer premptive multitasking.  While it doesn't currently offer
>preemptive
>multitasking between multiple Mac applications, I see no reason why it
>couldn't be written to do so.
>-- 

Huh????
Have you read what you said closely? You have just admitted that, indeed
native mac apps do not cope with pre-emptive multi-tasking, even under AUX.
the MacOS runs as one process under AUX and within that one process
cooperatively multitasks. Don't talk about thinks you don't understand. As
for why it's not trivial to fit in pre-emptive multi-tasking, one simple
reason is that the ROMs and the toolbox are not re-entrant.

Maynard Handley 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy