I wouldn't let any Amiga powered on for weeks with lots of software running and important data unsaved. This isn't an academic discussion...
I understand what you're getting at but, I'm going to have to disagree with this to some extent. I did an experiment back in '93-'94 where I ran an A1000 continuously for nearly a year and half without a single problem. Never powered it down or gave it a three fingered vulcan nerve pinch. It was running several apps, including a BBS. So while there is risk, imho this needs to be considered in terms of opportunities vs. percentage of failure. I agree it's not academic, it has to be based on your real situation.
I wouldn't mind letting powered on MacOSX, Win2K+, Unix opened with lots of important stuff unsaved.
I can't speak in terms of MacOSX, but I can tell you that the company I work for has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in trying to use NT, Win2K, and XP on systems requiring long term use and round the clock up time.
Cause unless there was a powercut I know my data would be back when I'll get back.
I'm not saying Amiga is better in this aspect but, I've been using Win based systems for years and none have ever given me a sense of data security. Quite the opposite in fact. I have done several studies on data loss with these WinOS based systems and the occurances of data loss is alarming especially when you factor out power loss events and operator caused conditions. If the Win based systems are so great in this respect then why is there such a large market for data recovery products and services. I've just spent the past year developing a methodology and software to work around many of the data loss short comings that exist with WinOS.
I don't want to have to choose the software I run because it may make me lose my work... nor do I want to wait before my HD led is off before powering my computer off, nor do I want to have to check I have enough graphics memory before running a (graphics) memory hungry software because the OS isn't capable of swapping: this is the task of the OS, not mine. The OS should (and will) take down any application trying to write outside its memory mapped,
Agreed! I can't wait till someone develops this!
the OS should close all apps and power the computer down when no app is writing to the disk
This doesn't sound like memory management to me.
