Amiga Multitask

[itix]

Pre-emptive multitasking means you can still be run, even if some other software is so badly written that it never yields.

Why would you even want to use such badly written crap anyway?

It sort of degrades pre-emptive multitasking to co-operative if before executing application you have to figure out is application really multitasking or not. Many Amiga applications from golden era dont multitask at all.

[MiAmigo]

I don't have an A1000, but I do recall that fateful day of seeing one in Marshall Field's (former Macy's-style department store in Chicago.) It was the very first time I'd ever seen a real photograph displayed on a computer monitor screen, at a time when PCs could only do green or amber text on a muddy brown screen!

I also saw my very first *ahem!* 'adult' themed movie vignette, stored on an Amiga floppy, of all things! (But not in the store, lol!)

That's not even to mention the amazing games they used to squeeze on one relatively low-density floppy!

Multi-tasking, true gaming animation in full-color, Video Toaster...if the A1000 had been allowed to evolve as PCs have plodded along till this day, we'd live in a much different, much better world!
:mickeymouse:

[warpdesign]

Since the OS didn't allow to share lots of resources (sound access was exclusive for example), it also limits what can be done using multitasking. No way to run two apps accessing paula for example...

Oh, and btw if one app that was using Paula and/or lots of chip memory crashes, you're good for a reboot... That's where features like resource tracking come handy. Not to mention your memory could be trashed even though everything appears to work perfectly (memory protection, anyone ?).

No one says it wasn't great in 1985. But it's seriously lacking important features today.

[itix]

Since the OS didn't allow to share lots of resources (sound access was exclusive for example), it also limits what can be done using multitasking. No way to run two apps accessing paula for example...

It is not exclusive and two or more applications could play sound simultaneously. Audio.device has priority based channel allocation system where application with a higher allocation priority get an access to one or more audio channels. Applications which allocated a sound channel with lesser priority just wen silent.

But Amiga applications rarely had any use for audio and games and music software of course required all available channels.

That's where features like resource tracking come handy.

Without memory protection it is useless. It only causes the snowball effect.

[psxphill]

I used many of the options available at the time, and the Amiga wasn't any less stable, and was (IMHO) much more usable.

It wasn't more usable because of the pre-emptive multitasking though. Especially when running code that did Forbid() or Disable(), which because of the OS design pretty much every program had to.
 
MacOS and Windows were slower because of the lack of hardware accelerated graphics & using PIO instead of DMA etc.
 
Doing things in hardware instead of software is a cost/performance tradeoff that works all the time you have a slow CPU. However Windows and a lesser extent MacOS could be made faster simply by selling machines with the latest CPU. While commodore had to fund the development of their chipset themselves.
 
Relying on third parties to develop faster graphics chips is a much better business model.

[lassie]

The first Amiga (to be known as the Amiga 1000) was special. Revolutionary.

Memory was the ceiling for multitasking for all PCs until relatively recently (Last 12 years) Because it was so expensive and usually programs were written to use all that a standard configuration supplied.
Windows 95 had 32 Bit preemptive multitasking with 32 Bit application protection. But you needed a lot of memory to run multiple programs. Luckily you couldn't install pizz poor marketing bullcrap onboard most MBs.

Hi was Windows 95 not one of the first "good" Windows?

[MiAmigo]

Hi was Windows 95 not one of the first "good" Windows?

My personal vote would actually go to Windows 98SE. Windows 95 did introduce a new, much more sleek and streamlined interface, which became the de facto standard for a long time, basically changing over from the clunky old 'kindergarten' style of 3.1.

[lassie]

My personal vote would actually go to Windows 98SE. Windows 95 did introduce a new, much more sleek and streamlined interface, which became the de facto standard for a long time, basically changing over from the clunky old 'kindergarten' style of 3.1.

Are there 2 versions of Windows 98?

[MiAmigo]

Are there 2 versions of Windows 98?

Yes, 'SE' stands for Second Edition.

[lassie]

Yes, 'SE' stands for Second Edition.

I still have a PC with Windows 98, so i can play older games, but i do not know if it is SE or not i have heard that Windows 2000 and Windows Vista is some of the worst of the newer Windows.

[spirantho]

You're confusing Windows 2000 - which was the good bits of NT without the bad bits of XP (but with hardly any drivers) - with Windows ME which was .. er, well, rubbish, basically.

[commodorejohn]

95 was a huge advancement over 3.1, but it was sorta only halfway to NT, so it wasn't particularly stable as a result. Light as hell, though, for modern 32-bit Windows. 98 and 98SE were heavier by quite a bit, but also much stabler.

2000 I've been playing around with, and I'm quite impressed at how light and responsive it is, and solid as a rock; I wish this had been the OS that took off and gained popularity rather than XP, then there'd be better, newer hardware I could run it on.

[lassie]

You're confusing Windows 2000 - which was the good bits of NT without the bad bits of XP (but with hardly any drivers) - with Windows ME which was .. er, well, rubbish, basically.

Yes it was Windows ME i was thinking of. Everybody was looking forward to the new Millenium Edition. But it did not quite live up to the expectations

[desiv]

It wasn't more usable because of the pre-emptive multitasking though..

Yes it was...
At least for me and people I knew.

Just being able to have a Word Processor and Terminal program running at the same time.
And then the ability to play a WB friendly (usually the little ones) on top of that....

I could be watching the progress of a ZModem download while typing a doc, without having to task switch...

It was more usable in many ways to me...

desiv

[persia]

Microsoft said they couldn't produce what they needed to produce out of DOS/Windows, they needed to switch to NT.  ME was the proof.

[spirantho]

Yes it was Windows ME i was thinking of. Everybody was looking forward to the new Millenium Edition. But it did not quite live up to the expectations

Quite the contrary... my expectation was that it would be dreadful. I wasn't disappointed
2000 was the first Windows that was properly usable to me, and I used it as long as I could before being forced onto xp.

Luckily I always had my Miggy to keep me sane, though!