Looks like multitasking in DOS (the typical DOS, anyway) is about
an almost lost cause. :)
How about multitasking -inside- a program? This seems to work well.
Windows (although all its obvious bad points) seems to be able to pull
it off. After all, its a program, running on DOS, that allow multitasking
of its own applications.
The reason why I asked the first question of the multitasking issue
thread was to figure why programs like DOS-Lynx or Arachne cannot perform
more then one download at once. (Yes, I know about the "multiple image
download", but didnt michael said that its isnt "real"?)
In my opinion, the reason why Arachne wouldnt be able to implement
"internal multitasking" and allow things like background file transfer
(download some big ZIP and MP3 files while continuing to browse around)
is because Arachne keeps getting in and out of the CORE program to
external applications and tools. So the background download will have
to be constantly paused, and resumed when Arachne returns.. this was
the same problem when Michael toyed with the idea of implementing
mICQ into Arachne. (you'll keep becoming "offline" each time you download
mail or convert JPG to BMP.)
These problems seems to be easily solveable on Linux, as you can simply
run a task under the parent CORE task, by this never actually quitting
Arachne. On DOS.. thats a problem.
Well, here is one of those ideas that will never actually become
reality: what could be usefull is a program that will allow Arachne
on DOS to run as a parent thread. An external multitasking software
that will be loaded and ran before Arachne itself is executed, which
Arachne can later detect and know how to use.
This will allow it to run its (small!) utilities without really quitting
CORE.EXE. Ofcourse, this means a multitasker, not a task switcher,
since CORE will have to continue running on background all the time.
I'm talking about a lite version of multitasking, nothing heavy.
Not talking about projects like the DR-DOS task manager or Desqview
that allow loading several big dos programs at once in diffrent tasks,
but of a multitasker that allows loading only ONE task and then running
"under it" several tasks at once. Linux style threads, with only one
thread.
But thats too hard to make and its just an idea. (something tells
me i'm going to be flamed anyway.)
Or Botton
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Truth is stranger then fiction, since fiction has to make sense."
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