Re: Supervisor mode & multitasking

[Konrad Kokoszkiewicz <draco@piwo.bl.pg.gda.pl>]

> The problem is that a generally available system call for switching system
> to single mode might be (and sure will) misused very often (for example
> Thing - widely spread program, probably most used desktop - and it will turn
> MiNT into singleTOS?).

Yes, it may be. But sometimes it may be nice to have an option to
write/run a program, which takes an advantage of being the only task in
the system to utilize the full processing power of the CPU. As the
function is restricted to root, it won't affect multiuser setups very much
(like people those have connection to the net usually grant friends
accounts etc). At the other hand, there's some old, but still decent
software, that can't run in multitasking and it is a pain to reboot each
time to TOS and back. A good example is Pure Debugger (MONST also doesn't
work very well under MiNT). If you use a debugger to trace own program,
such a session takes rather minutes than hours, then you'd need to reboot
back to MiNT for other minutes (to fix something and compile program
again), then back to TOS to run the debugger to see if everything is OK...
pain, pain, just pain.

> And then, suddenly someone writes an "interface" for running all sorts of
> programs in singletasking under MiNT. At the end you will not be able to
> e.g. compile, render or listen to music in background, because nearly every
> program in foreground (including your favourite desktop) will stop the task
> switching.

Well, horrible scenario. :) But notice now any program can stop
multitasking as well, using Supexec() for example (as EmuXL does when
entering the 6502 emulator). And, besides, Thing desktop doesn't need this
for itself, but for possibility of starting old software (like Pure
Debugger) in single mode when necessary...

Konrad M.Kokoszkiewicz
mail:draco@bl.pg.gda.pl
http://www.orient.uw.edu.pl/~conradus/

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