On Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:46:48 +0100, Anton Preinsack wrote > Sad, but true. Another reason why the Q60 deserves a > relaunch...;-) > > Anton > > Am 30.01.2010 um 22:26 schrieb [email protected]: > > > The iSlate and Z88 do not run QL programs. So not relevant. Derek
It is only yesterday with all this buzz on the "ipad" that I realized that Steve did it again! The "iphone" and now the "ipad" are not multitasking, here an extract from the SDK instructions: Only one iPhone application can run at a time, and third-party applications never run in the background. This means that when users switch to another application, answer the phone, or check their email, the application they were using quits. If interested also look at this link, where you will be informed that 76 MB of memory is a little bit low for multitasking: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/03/13/iphone-20-sdk-the-no-multitasking-myth/ Why did I write "Steve did it again"? Because he already did it in 1984. They had the Lisa, there was Unix, but the systems that worked and sold en masse were not multitasking: they were the first MacOS and MS-DOS. However I am amazed that he did it again, and that he was right again. Again it is this non-multitasking system that works and sells better than Symbian (message passing multitasking) or Win-CE (posix like multiprocessing) systems. Why did I write "Back on topic"? Because I understood about 10 years ago that the multitasking QDOS/SMSQ-E is in fact a multitasking system (time sharing as TT would say) that, from the point of view of the user jobs and thus the point of view of the applications programmers, behaves more like a monotasking system than a multitasking system. And yet, as we all know, it "multitasks" very well. QDOS/SMS-E is now more than 25 years old, but is it still 25 years ahead of today's time? I think yes and I believe that this is why it never had and will not have a stable commercial niche in the foreseeable future. In fact it is clear that systems developers love the complexity of posix-like multiprocessing/multithreading environments: it is because it secures their workplace and their wages. And BTW I did not dream this, one of them, system programmer at ABB robotics, wrote exactly this to me. Arnould _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
