Re: Multitask 16 and 8 bit on GS???

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <3ec4ku$lc4@elna.ethz.ch>,
GUDAT,HENRIK MICHAEL <GUDATH@EZINFO.VMSMAIL.ETHZ.CH> wrote:
>In <3ebajf$dg7@paris.ics.uci.edu> jlee@ics.uci.edu writes:
>> Jimmy Shaw (eaiu184@rigel.oac.uci.edu) wrote:
>> : I think an old piece of sotware by Roger Wanger Publishing (the HyperStudio
>> : people,) called SoftSwitch (?) could multitask several 8-bit program.

>> I though it was more like a 8-bit program switcher than a multitasker.

>Yup, just a switcher. It worked only with a memory expansion card.

   Since it switched 133K per program (128K main mem + 5K for
something), to switch out 1 program, you needed >256K mem. So, you
needed the memory expanded beyond the base 256K on a Rom 01. A Rom 03
with 1MB on the motherboard would do fine; no mem expansion card
necessary.

>The program stored a complete memory dump in the RAM eexpansion card and
>swapped it with main memory on the user's request. As far as I remember, this
>memory swapping was pretty slow.

   It swapped 133K per process, as noted above. For a 2.5Mhz
processor, this wasn't too bad. As far as I remember, it just took
maybe 2 seconds to swap. Perfectly acceptible in my opinion. It was
the minimization of the current screen to the sample screen (roughly
80x50 in 320x200 mode) that was kinda slow, especially from Hires
graphics. I'd have liked a mode where I could just put some sort of
'tag' on the screen rather than a minimized screen.

Nathan Mates


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