Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

Yes, it does. I've seen the code.


No you haven't No one person has seen all those lines of code. If you
want people to believe you are privy to the inner workings of the NT
kernel, you will have to explain how you found the time to read and
understand so much of it that you can make such a bogus statement in
the first place.

Talk is cheap on usenet. No one is impressed. Hey, for all you know, I
was on the development team.

It does preemptively multitask, and the kernel has complete control of
all applications.

Nope. Like I said, you do not have the proper defintion, or if it makes
you feel better, we are not applying the same definition.

You're still applying the principles of 16-bit Windows and Windows 9x
to the NT-based operating systems. The latter are completely different
operating systems, though, rewritten from scratch, and they don't have
anything in common with other versions of Windows except for the look
and feel of the user interface.

Everyone knows NT/XP/2000 is not windows 95. Don't treat your readers
like they are dummies.


It is both good and preemptive.

Nope. Sorry.


OS/2 is dead and gone, and although it was superior in design to the
old versions of Windows, it was not superior to NT.


www.ecomstation.com

Hardly dead, and oh by the way, NT was built on early OS/2 code. NT and
2000 had plenty of OS/2 code in their kernel, and can even run text
mode OS/2 apps. If you had seen the code...... you would know that.

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

BTW, the early OS/2 that was first demonstrated by IBM - one
task could literally lock out other tasks.

I am not advocating it, I only pointed out that its multitasking was
true, pre-emptive, and vastly superior to any MS product. Oh, BTW, the
first versions of windows wouldn't even run a day without crashing and
had more bugs than lines of code. So what does that have to do with
anything?

Even worse, the
IBM people did not even understand what multitasking was as we
showed them one application locking out other tasks. When
first released, bugs in OS/2 caused its preemptive MT
abilities to not perform correctly.

And when first released, windows was a total disaster. Again, so what?
Stay in the present. At its peak in the late 90's, OS/2 was a cadillac
to M$'s yugo. You can always argue app support, but technically,
nothing holds a candle to OS/2. If MS was allowed to be crap for 10
years, and is now glorified, why do you think it matters that OS/2 had
problems at first as well? The SIQ was the cause of just about any hang
on any OS/2 system. When that was not an issue, NT could not stand up
to OS/2 for stability. When Billy glued that dopey GUI onto NT, its
reliability tanked.

There is a reason why OS/2 ran every ATM on the planet until the banks
sold out to billy. If your ATM works, its OS/2.

And just another reason why OS/2 was not a
profitable product for IBM.

OS/2 was not profitable for a lot of reasons, the largest of which came
out in the MS trial, when we all learned that gates blackmailed IBM
into killing it off. Again, totally irrelevant to the topic at
hand.Profits do not equate to quality and features. I would take a BMW
over a Ford any day, but Ford sells more product. Doesn't mean their
cars are better, it just means they sell more of them. Again, so what?

Windows NT does it for all
applications,


According to some people's warped definition of preemptive
multitasking, but NT's "idea" of it was not what preemptive really is,
as demonstrated in OS/2 (not early releases, like you are whining
about)

NT was Microsoft's answer to OS/2 when IBM and Microsoft finally had
a parting of the ways in early 1990s.

Wake up. NT WAS OS/2 as taken by gates when he split from M$ Everyone
knows bill never invented anything, or wrote an OS from the ground up.
He took NT from IBM as part of the parting of the ways, and found
people to embellish it, except he took what you are whining about which
is the versions that could not do preemptive multitasking. Shoot, he
couldn't even pull the OS/2 code from the kernel until XP came around.
Such a brilliant mind he has.....


However OS/2 has no useful
graphical interface.

Wow. Dumbest statement I ever read on usenet. Apparently, you never,
ever saw OS/2 on a desktop. Most people will agree that the OS/2 Object
Oriented interface is superior in every way to anything M$ has ever
stolen. The OS/2 desktop is legendary. Can't believe you never saw
it.......

Guess that pretty much blows any credibility you were hoping to show
off around here.

No useful graphical interface. Yikes.... You really are clueless.

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

You don't need to look at the code. Just write a program that runs in
a tight loop, and run it. If you can still switch to other tasks in
the system, you have preemptive multitasking. And on NT and its
descendants, you can do exactly that.

Oye! I was right, you don't know what pre-emptive multitasking is......
Wikipedia is not the source of all knowledge.....

NT and 2000 had plenty of OS/2 code in their kernel, and can even
run text mode OS/2 apps.

You can run MS-DOS apps, too, but that doesn't mean that NT contains
MS-DOS code.

If you had seen the code...... you would know that.

I don't remember if I ever looked at compatibility stuff. I wasn't
much interested in emulation.


It is not emulated, it is OS/2 base code that runs native. You must be
aware of that.

As if bill gates would allow OS/2 emulation to be built into HIS
operating system rolling eyes

Gates and co. did NOT write NT from scratch. They based much of it on
the code developed at IBM for OS/2 when there was no mickysoft. Really,
anyone who was around at the time, or who bothers to check even for a
moment knows that. The only code any microsoft person ever wrote from
scratch was Bob....

OS/2 has no useful graphical interface? Thanks, I will remember that
one for a long time :-)

www.ecomstation.com

Either way, have a nice day. No point in wasting bandwidth on the same
old stuff year after year. Doesn't really matter in the long run. Take
a shot back to make you feel even. No big thing..... g

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

Does anybody really 'know' what time it is?

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

Does anybody really care? Not 'CHICAGO' White Sox who
will even play baseball at 2 o'clock in the morning.

JAD wrote:
Does anybody really 'know' what time it is?

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

JAD writes:

Does anybody really 'know' what time it is?

Does anybody really care?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
JAD writes:

Does anybody really 'know' what time it is?

Does anybody really care?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

about time?

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

Microsoft did not blackmail IBM into killing off OS/2. To
understand why IBM back then never wrote a single successful
software product for the PC, start at the source. 85% of all
problems are directly traceable to top management. And so in
1992, what computer is on the desks of IBM top management?
IBM XTs with CGA monitors. 1983 machines on Sept 1990 desks.
IBM management was so technically ignorant - so educated in
MBA school philosophies - that their own computers could not
execute new software sold in retail stores.

This is a company that will make a successful OS?

OS/2 was just another classic example of IBM management who
did not even write code. Names such as Cannavino and Akers
should be on your lips. These were bean counters who could
not recognize an innovation even if it bit them in the ass.
It is that technical ignorance that caused difficulty for
Microsoft to get IBM to endorse innovation - such as a
graphical interface. IBM in 1990 even insisted on writing new
OS code for the 1984 IBM AT - IBM management was that myopic.
Windows 3.0 arrived May 1990.

Managers who were technically naive caused an IBM /
Microsoft breakup. IBM was brainwashed into a mainframe
mentality - had no appreciation of the graphical interface
that was even making Apple so successful. IBM even called
their PC group the Entry Systems division because they viewed
the PC only as an extension of mainframes. Cannavino was even
declaring his division the most profitable when it was really
losing, in 1992, about $1billion per year.

The IBM Microsoft divorce, started Sept 1990, gave Microsoft
development of Windows and gave IBM the development of OS/2.
This separation was fully implemented by mid-1991. These were
the days of Windows 3.x. OS/2 did not work well was Jan
1992. OS/2 2.0 finally arrived in 1993 about the same time
that a first Windows NT was making an appearance. IOW
Windows NT was created completely independent of IBM and
contrary to what was posted.

After the parting, Microsoft started building two operating
systems. One was a preemptive multitasking OS that used a
graphical interface, worked superbly, and met the delivery
schedule. I was using NT without crashes before a completely
different OS named Windows 95 arrived. In fact NT engineers
had to transfer to the Windows 95 group because Win 95 was so
problematic.

NT worked just fine without crashing on my 486s in direct
contradiction to what was posted. In fact this PC is a 486-66
Mhz PC. Why? It uses Windows NT 4.0 that executes hardware
fast enough even ten years later. With Windows 9x, this 486
machine would have been scrapped long ago. That is how stable
NT was even back in 1994. But again, if discussing Windows,
then always state which one. Back then, two completely
different Windows OSes existed. Previous posts imply all
Windows OSes are same.

OS/2 could have been successful in mid 1980s. But a
multitasking text oriented Operating System released in the
1990s and written in assembly language was too little too late
- and an example of what happens when top management are bean
counters rather than come from where the work gets done.

IBM top management undermined OS/2 - especially its greatest
anti-innovators - John Akers and Jim Cannavino. Nobody would
write a new Operating System in assembly language. And yet
that is exactly what IBM managers did with OS/2.

Its a tribute to IBM engineers that they were able to make
OS/2 functional. But again, too little too late - or what
happens when top management does not come from where the work
gets done.

In 1992, OS/2 still was not doing a graphical interface
because even top IBM management did not understand the
concept. Worse, the first version did not yet do preemptive
multitasking correctly. Too little too late. Symptoms
directly traceable to inferior top management in IBM.

So how does this related to a CMOS date time clock that does
not keep good time AND predates all of this?

wrote:
I am not advocating it, I only pointed out that its multitasking was
true, pre-emptive, and vastly superior to any MS product. Oh, BTW, the
first versions of windows wouldn't even run a day without crashing and
had more bugs than lines of code. So what does that have to do with
anything?

Even worse, the IBM people did not even understand what
multitasking was as we showed them one application locking
out other tasks. When first released, bugs in OS/2 caused
its preemptive MT abilities to not perform correctly.

And when first released, windows was a total disaster. Again, so what?
Stay in the present. At its peak in the late 90's, OS/2 was a cadillac
to M$'s yugo. You can always argue app support, but technically,
nothing holds a candle to OS/2. If MS was allowed to be crap for 10
years, and is now glorified, why do you think it matters that OS/2 had
problems at first as well? The SIQ was the cause of just about any hang
on any OS/2 system. When that was not an issue, NT could not stand up
to OS/2 for stability. When Billy glued that dopey GUI onto NT, its
reliability tanked.

There is a reason why OS/2 ran every ATM on the planet until the banks
sold out to billy. If your ATM works, its OS/2.

And just another reason why OS/2 was not a profitable
product for IBM.

OS/2 was not profitable for a lot of reasons, the largest of which came
out in the MS trial, when we all learned that gates blackmailed IBM
into killing it off. Again, totally irrelevant to the topic at
hand.Profits do not equate to quality and features. I would take a BMW
over a Ford any day, but Ford sells more product. Doesn't mean their
cars are better, it just means they sell more of them. Again, so what?

Windows NT does it for all applications,

According to some people's warped definition of preemptive
multitasking, but NT's "idea" of it was not what preemptive really is,
as demonstrated in OS/2 (not early releases, like you are whining
about)

NT was Microsoft's answer to OS/2 when IBM and Microsoft finally
had a parting of the ways in early 1990s.

Wake up. NT WAS OS/2 as taken by gates when he split from M$ Everyone
knows bill never invented anything, or wrote an OS from the ground up.
He took NT from IBM as part of the parting of the ways, and found
people to embellish it, except he took what you are whining about which
is the versions that could not do preemptive multitasking. Shoot, he
couldn't even pull the OS/2 code from the kernel until XP came around.
Such a brilliant mind he has.....

However OS/2 has no useful graphical interface.

Wow. Dumbest statement I ever read on usenet. Apparently, you never,
ever saw OS/2 on a desktop. Most people will agree that the OS/2 Object
Oriented interface is superior in every way to anything M$ has ever
stolen. The OS/2 desktop is legendary. Can't believe you never saw
it.......

Guess that pretty much blows any credibility you were hoping to show
off around here.

No useful graphical interface. Yikes.... You really are clueless.

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

w_tom writes:

IBM top management undermined OS/2 - especially its greatest
anti-innovators - John Akers and Jim Cannavino. Nobody would
write a new Operating System in assembly language. And yet
that is exactly what IBM managers did with OS/2.

Writing an OS in assembly language is not necessarily a bad decision.
OS code quality is a function of the people you hire to write the code
and the way you manage the project, not the programming language you
choose. Assembly language has the advantage of being extremely tight
and fast; but it's not very portable.

OS/2 died for reasons independent of being written in any particular
language, as you explain elsewhere.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

Andy Baxter wrote:

Not an answer to your question, but if this is a problem for you and you
have a broadband or frequent dial-up connection, you can synchronise your
clock with a time server on the internet using a protocol called ntp.

That improves the accuracy of the reported time but not of the clocks
themselves.

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

wrote in message
oups.com...

Andy Baxter wrote:

Not an answer to your question, but if this is a problem for you and you
have a broadband or frequent dial-up connection, you can synchronise your
clock with a time server on the internet using a protocol called ntp.

That improves the accuracy of the reported time but not of the clocks
themselves.


Sure, but a least you know what time it is.

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

"JAD" wrote in message
...
Does anybody really 'know' what time it is?



Ask the Navy. If you do not know what time it is you do not know where you
are. So, does anybody really know where they are?

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
JAD writes:

Does anybody really 'know' what time it is?

Does anybody really care?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

My boss does :-(

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

and pretty ladies

"DBLEXPOSURE" wrote in message
...

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
JAD writes:

Does anybody really 'know' what time it is?

Does anybody really care?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

My boss does :-(

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:

Andy Baxter wrote:

Not an answer to your question, but if this is a problem
for you and you have a broadband or frequent dial-up
connection, you can synchronise your clock with a time
server on the internet using a protocol called ntp.

That improves the accuracy of the reported time but not of the clocks
themselves.

It improves both. A good NTP server can hold your system clock to
within milliseconds of the correct time; with an accurate local
reference, it can do perhaps 100 times better. The hardware RTC in
your PC won't be any more accurate, but the actual time of date
returned by the system will. It works extremely well.

Unfortunately I need a solution for non-networked computers, and it
looks like I'll have to resort to hardware.

Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?
 

The truth about OS/2!!! [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

"w_tom" wrote in message
...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 19:25:47 -0400

Microsoft did not blackmail IBM into killing off OS/2...

Actually it was the other way around. As IBM black mailed into writing
OS/2. And IBM's master plan was to get everyone off of MS-DOS and on to
OS/2. Then IBM would have OS/2 changed to run on only true IBM PCs. Thus
killing off the clone market and MS as well. This was all documented and
shown on PBS.

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

The truth about OS/2!!! [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:42:43 +0200

writes:

OS/2 is dead and gone, and although it was superior in design to the
old versions of Windows, it was not superior to NT.

Supposedly better in design, but OS/2 sucked in real life for many of
us! As only one OS/2 Win session had sound while the others was
soundless. And a good number of Windows applications would routinely
crashed under OS/2, but stable as a rock under Windows 3.1. Then the
OS/2 GUI was unstable for at least a couple of years and crashed the
whole system. Then the FixPaks often caused more problems than they
fixed. IBM programmers are morons!

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

The truth about OS/2!!! [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

wrote in message
oups.com...
Date: 28 Oct 2005 13:35:00 -0700

Hardly dead,

You mean hardly useful! And IBM dropped support a few months before they
were saying they would never drop OS/2 support. IBM has never done
anything except lie to me over and over again.

and oh by the way, NT was built on early OS/2 code. NT and 2000 had
plenty of OS/2 code in their kernel, and can even run text mode
OS/2 apps. If you had seen the code...... you would know that.

I did a search through OS/2 files for the Microsoft copyright in Warp a
few years ago. And Warp was littered everywhere with Microsoft's code
throughout OS/2.

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

The truth about OS/2!!! [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:42:43 +0200

writes:

OS/2 is dead and gone, and although it was superior in design to the
old versions of Windows, it was not superior to NT.

Supposedly better in design, but OS/2 sucked in real life for many of
us! As only one OS/2 Win session had sound while the others was
soundless. And a good number of Windows applications would routinely
crashed under OS/2, but stable as a rock under Windows 3.1. Then the
OS/2 GUI was unstable for at least a couple of years and crashed the
whole system. Then the FixPaks often caused more problems than they
fixed. IBM programmers are morons!

Am I the only guy that was working with this crap back then? IBM
contracted with M$ to write OS/2 for them in like 1987. M$ drug their
feet on the release, while spending IBM's money, so that they could get
Win 3.0 out before OS/2, by saying that OS/2 just wasn't stable enough
for release yet. Yeah, no conflict of interest their. Finally IBM got
fed up and took the project away from M$. There are very many
suspicious similarities in "bugs" within the graphics system calls of
Win 3.0 and OS/2.

Cooperative and Preemptive Multitasking [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

"James Sweet" wrote in message
news:%Ig8f.32451$gF4.27376@trnddc07...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 03:15:07 GMT

and the inability of windows to pre-emptively
multitask,

Incorrect.

snip

How about offering some insight rather than just a big buzzer?

Depends on the version really, Win 3.1 and earlier didn't offer pre-
emptive multitasking,

All DOS applications ran under Windows 3.1 preemptively.

when an application was minimized it generally ground to a halt.

If the application doesn't want CPU time, it doesn't get it. This is
what makes cooperative tasking really great! I love cooperative tasking
when it is done right.

Win 9x was a big improvement over this but still mediocre. Win
NT/2K/XP is better still, and are generally quite good OS's,

That is your belief and my opinions are mixed. Take this 2595XDVD
running Windows 2000 with 192MB of RAM (its maxed out). And it can't
handle streaming audio/video anything faster than 100k. Yet the other
laptop, same thing except it runs Windows 98SE has no problems streaming
coming in at 800k or higher. So in this case, Windows 98 is better at
multitasking than Windows 2000/XP are.

but the multitasking is still rather poor compared to several other
OS's on the market. Of course any OS is a compromise, what you gain
in one area you often lose in another.

No in my humble opinion and experience.

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

The truth about OS/2!!! [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

BillW50 writes:

Actually it was the other way around. As IBM black mailed into writing
OS/2. And IBM's master plan was to get everyone off of MS-DOS and on to
OS/2. Then IBM would have OS/2 changed to run on only true IBM PCs. Thus
killing off the clone market and MS as well. This was all documented and
shown on PBS.

IBM sounds a lot like Apple.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Cooperative and Preemptive Multitasking [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

wrote in message
...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 10:29:38 -0600

Sixteen-bit versions of Windows never did preemptive multitasking.
Thirty-two bit versions did and do, for 32-bit applications (but not
for 16-bit applications). Windows NT does it for all applications,

No, windows NT does not pre-emptively multitask.

Actually Windows 3.1 did preemptive multitasking for DOS applications.
Which was like a few weeks difference than OS/2 claimed to do so.

Win NT/2K/XP is better still, and are generally quite good
OS's, but the multitasking is still rather poor compared to several
other OS's on the market.

This is because it only multitasks, but it is not pre-emptive
multitasking. The kernel does not have complete control of each
application.

It depends on the Windows application. All DOS applications use
preemptive and 32-bit Windows uses preemptive. But 16-bit Windows
applications uses cooperative tasking (which in my experience is often
better than preemptive tasking anyway). This is true for Windows 3.1,
and Windows 9x. I'm not sure what happens under NT/2K/XP with 16-bit
Windows applications. As who runs 16-bit Windows applications anymore?

Not true. Multitasking on all the NT-based versions of Windows is
excellent.

It is very good, but it is not pre-emptive. OS/2, for one, uses
pre-emptive and it is so far ahead and superior to the way windows
works, folks would not believe it. The difference between the two is
beyond night and day.

OS/2 sucked BIG TIME for preemptive tasking Windows 3.1 applications!
Some Windows applications crashed and burned under OS/2 when the same
ran stable as a rock under the real Windows. OS/2 often multitasked
Windows applications far slower than the real Windows OS. And that is
why preemptive tasking sucks! It often gives too much CPU time to
something that doesn't need it and not enough time for one that does
need it.

To fix the flaw with preemptive tasking, OS often includes an
application priority level that one could adjust so it behaves better
with other multitasking functions. Cooperative tasking has no need for
any of this tweaking nonsense. Plus everything in the multitasking sense
often runs faster because the stupid preemptive tasking OS isn't
screwing everything up with its added CPU overhead.

The difference will prove to be in your definition. The original
definition has been absconded with by microsoft in order to make it
appear that their inferior implementation actually meets the
requirements, so if it is really important that you 'win' that's okay
with me.

Mark

You have never mentioned cooperative tasking in anything you have
posted. Me thinks you really don't know about the different methods of
multitasking and the pros and cons of each.

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

Recommending D4 to others [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

"DBLEXPOSURE" wrote in message
...
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 12:58:06 -0500

... look for a program called D4. It is a free download and will
keep your clock synced to universal time. Also, Widows XP can sync
to the same time servers that D4 uses. Both work great!

Nobody I've seen yet thanked you for recommending this fine program.
Well I for one am very grateful! Although I usually set my computers
clocks about 5 to 10 times per year because they were off about a
minute. But now this is one task I don't have to worry about anymore.
grin

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

Cooperative and Preemptive Multitasking [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

BillW50 writes:

It depends on the Windows application. All DOS applications use
preemptive and 32-bit Windows uses preemptive. But 16-bit Windows
applications uses cooperative tasking (which in my experience is often
better than preemptive tasking anyway). This is true for Windows 3.1,
and Windows 9x. I'm not sure what happens under NT/2K/XP with 16-bit
Windows applications.

Sixteen-bit applications cooperatively multitask within a single NTVDM
(virtual DOS machine). The NTVDM is preemptively multitasked with
other processes in the system. This is done because 16-bit
applications often cannot tolerate preemptive multitasking; they
expect to run in systems that enforce only cooperative multitasking.
It's possible to preemptively multitask 16-bit applications by running
each of them in a separate NTVDM, though.

To fix the flaw with preemptive tasking, OS often includes an
application priority level that one could adjust so it behaves better
with other multitasking functions. Cooperative tasking has no need for
any of this tweaking nonsense. Plus everything in the multitasking sense
often runs faster because the stupid preemptive tasking OS isn't
screwing everything up with its added CPU overhead.

For what it's worth, I once wrote a communications program that
achieved unheard of line speeds on very slow PCs by using cooperative
multitasking instead of preemptive multitasking. The latter is indeed
much slower, although it's more consistent and it does compensate for
poorly written applications to some extent.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

The truth about OS/2!!! [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:41:44 GMT, "Anthony Fremont"
wrote:

Am I the only guy that was working with this crap back then? IBM
contracted with M$ to write OS/2 for them in like 1987. M$ drug their
feet on the release, while spending IBM's money, so that they could get
Win 3.0 out before OS/2, by saying that OS/2 just wasn't stable enough
for release yet. Yeah, no conflict of interest their. Finally IBM got
fed up and took the project away from M$. There are very many
suspicious similarities in "bugs" within the graphics system calls of
Win 3.0 and OS/2.

Interesting interview with Bill Gates on the whole OS/2 debacle in
PC Magazine, Nov 8, 2005 page 122-123.

Best regards.




Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com
Home of DaqGen, the FREEWARE signal generator

Cooperative and Preemptive Multitasking [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:53:25 GMT, "BillW50" wrote:

All DOS applications ran under Windows 3.1 preemptively.

I hadn't heard of this before. Can you explain how it worked?
I had the impression that the DOS application took over and
Windows apps didn't get any time at all. If there were time
slices for Windows apps, do you recall how they did this?

Thanks!




Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com
Home of DaqGen, the FREEWARE signal generator

Cooperative and Preemptive Multitasking [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

"Bob Masta" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 13:35:58 GMT

On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:53:25 GMT, "BillW50" wrote:

All DOS applications ran under Windows 3.1 preemptively.

I hadn't heard of this before. Can you explain how it worked?

I'll try. grin

I had the impression that the DOS application took over and
Windows apps didn't get any time at all. If there were time
slices for Windows apps, do you recall how they did this?

Well the OS itself requires CPU time for itself as well. But we will
skip that part and just focus on the applications. Now Windows 3.1 (as
well as other Windows 16-bit) applications (which are cooperative
tasking) under W31/NT/W9x/W2K/XP always throws them into one single VDM
(virtual DOS machine). And if this is all of the applications running,
multitasking is generally just fine and runs very well. Although while I
have found it to be very rare, one bad cooperative application can ruin
it for the other cooperative applications.

Now add one DOS application which gets its own VDM. And this one DOS
application supposedly gets 50% of the CPU time while the total number
of the other cooperative applications shares the other 50%. Which can be
bad right? Yes it can be. But not always. As Windows 3.1, OS/2, etc.
tries to guess about these preemptive sessions when these DOS and 32-bit
applications are not really doing anything useful. Like running a
keyboard scan in a loop until it gets something. For example, WordStar
for DOS runs very well under Windows and OS/2. And it isn't using up 50%
of the CPU time in this example.

Now add a second DOS application. Thus the two DOS applications
theoretically gets 33.3% of the CPU each, and the cooperative
applications all have to share 33.3%. See how this does in those
cooperative applications?

All 16-bit applications (whether DOS or Windows) gets a VDM. Although
every DOS application gets its own VDM. 32-bit applications don't get a
VDM at all, but gets environment 32-bit subsystems instead. Which in a
weak way, might be thought like being VDMs as far as multitasking goes.

To really understand this stuff in detail, see like:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...8/proch36.mspx

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

The truth about OS/2!!! [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

Bob Masta writes:

Interesting interview with Bill Gates on the whole OS/2 debacle in
PC Magazine, Nov 8, 2005 page 122-123.

What I find most interesting is that November 8 is still over a week
in the future.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Cooperative and Preemptive Multitasking [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

"Bob Masta" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:53:25 GMT, "BillW50" wrote:

All DOS applications ran under Windows 3.1 preemptively.

I hadn't heard of this before. Can you explain how it worked?
I had the impression that the DOS application took over and
Windows apps didn't get any time at all. If there were time
slices for Windows apps, do you recall how they did this?

It was basically a form of cooperative multitasking. When the DOS app
called INT21 functions or made BIOS calls, Windos could then regain
control of the machine. Hardly what I'd call preemptive multitasking.

It is my opinion that even XP doesn't qualify as a proper OS. Any OS
that allows an errant application to hang things up is not right.

The truth about OS/2!!! [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:41:44 GMT

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:42:43 +0200

writes:

OS/2 is dead and gone, and although it was superior in design to
the old versions of Windows, it was not superior to NT.

Supposedly better in design, but OS/2 sucked in real life for many
of us! As only one OS/2 Win session had sound while the others was
soundless. And a good number of Windows applications would
routinely crashed under OS/2, but stable as a rock under Windows
3.1. Then the OS/2 GUI was unstable for at least a couple of years
and crashed the whole system. Then the FixPaks often caused more
problems than they fixed. IBM programmers are morons!

Am I the only guy that was working with this crap back then?

Nope!

IBM contracted with M$ to write OS/2 for them in like 1987.

It might have been in '86 actually. And MS had been working on Windows
since about '84. Although MS couldn't give the development time it
deserved because those MS programmers were mostly working on OS/2. MS
lost 3 years in Windows development because of OS/2.

M$ drug their feet on the release, while spending IBM's money, so
that they could get Win 3.0 out before OS/2, by saying that OS/2
just wasn't stable enough for release yet. Yeah, no conflict of
interest their.

IBM only paid MS for the lines of code MS produced. IBM didn't care if
MS spent more time to make the code lean, mean and faster. As IBM would
pay you less if you did so. IBM was cutting their own throats. IBM is
full of a much of morons. Impossible to work with and to get paid fairly
for. Hell I would work slowly and drag my feet as well for those morons.

Finally IBM got fed up and took the project away from M$.

Yeah, IBM got fed up alright! As Microsoft didn't want to be a slave to
IBM (who always makes slaves or crushes anybody that gets in their way
up to this point in time). And IBM wanted MS to create OS/2 which would
be made to run on only true IBM PCs after they have the world hooked on
OS/2.

Yeah that is a great plan for us, NOT! Bill Gates had taken the biggest
risk in his career. As nobody ever bucked IBM and had survived. Although
he did it! And thank goodness he did! As we all would be using real IBM
machines and OS/2 by now.

Sure IBM was ticked that Bill Gates wasn't going to play along. So they
parted ways. And IBM wouldn't sell any IBM computer with Windows
installed for a short time. Until IBM realized that they couldn't sell
IBM computers with either crappy PC-DOS or OS/2 on them. As
people wanted Windows instead, plain and simple.

There are very many suspicious similarities in "bugs" within the
graphics system calls of Win 3.0 and OS/2.

The same MS programmers wrote both OS/2 and Windows 3.0. So why should
this be a surprise?

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

Cooperative and Preemptive Multitasking [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

Anthony Fremont writes:

It is my opinion that even XP doesn't qualify as a proper OS. Any OS
that allows an errant application to hang things up is not right.

XP does not allow applications to do that, unless they have the proper
privileges.

Unfortunately, many Windows applications today won't run without
elaborate privileges, and if they contain bugs, they can hang the
system. That's not the fault of the OS; if you tell it to run an
application as the administrator, it will, and all bets are off.

Even so, modern Windows applications are generally extremely stable,
and XP is even more stable still. I can't remember the last time I
saw an XP system crash. If the hardware fails, it may crash. A bad
driver can still crash it in certain situations. But that's it. Even
the Windows Explorer, a bastion of fragile instability when it was
first transplanted from Windows 95 into Windows NT 4.0, now rarely if
ever causes any problems.

Come to think of it, not only can I not remember the last time I saw
an XP system crash, I can't remember the last time I saw it lock up.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

The truth about OS/2!!! [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:41:44 GMT

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:42:43 +0200

writes:

OS/2 is dead and gone, and although it was superior in design to
the old versions of Windows, it was not superior to NT.

Supposedly better in design, but OS/2 sucked in real life for many
of us! As only one OS/2 Win session had sound while the others was
soundless. And a good number of Windows applications would
routinely crashed under OS/2, but stable as a rock under Windows
3.1. Then the OS/2 GUI was unstable for at least a couple of years
and crashed the whole system. Then the FixPaks often caused more
problems than they fixed. IBM programmers are morons!

Am I the only guy that was working with this crap back then?

Nope!

IBM contracted with M$ to write OS/2 for them in like 1987.

It might have been in '86 actually. And MS had been working on Windows
since about '84. Although MS couldn't give the development time it
deserved because those MS programmers were mostly working on OS/2. MS
lost 3 years in Windows development because of OS/2.

I suppose that's one way to look at the time that M$ spent sucking money
from IBM and using it for their own gains.

M$ drug their feet on the release, while spending IBM's money, so
that they could get Win 3.0 out before OS/2, by saying that OS/2
just wasn't stable enough for release yet. Yeah, no conflict of
interest their.

IBM only paid MS for the lines of code MS produced. IBM didn't care if
MS spent more time to make the code lean, mean and faster. As IBM
would

I think IBM had visions of stability that M$ will never attain, ever.

pay you less if you did so. IBM was cutting their own throats. IBM is
full of a much of morons. Impossible to work with and to get paid
fairly
for. Hell I would work slowly and drag my feet as well for those
morons.

Yeah, morons. They only own the mainframe market even though Honeywell
made better hardware. IBM's only moronic move was to allow M$ to screw
them for a second time. The first time being with MSDOS/IBMDOS games.

Finally IBM got fed up and took the project away from M$.

Yeah, IBM got fed up alright! As Microsoft didn't want to be a slave
to
IBM (who always makes slaves or crushes anybody that gets in their way

Too bad that isn't true since they would have done the world a great
favor by crushing M$.

up to this point in time). And IBM wanted MS to create OS/2 which
would
be made to run on only true IBM PCs after they have the world hooked
on
OS/2.

Yeah that is a great plan for us, NOT! Bill Gates had taken the
biggest
risk in his career. As nobody ever bucked IBM and had survived.
Although
he did it! And thank goodness he did! As we all would be using real
IBM
machines and OS/2 by now.

Actually, if Gates wasn't so good at being greedy, we'd all be using
something that actually worked. OS/2 was crap too. Too bad Xerox
didn't have sense enough to stay in the game, they had the best product
for the office in 1980. Apple didn't have anything that could come
close for around 10 years. It took M$ almost another 5 years on top of
that to catch up.

Sure IBM was ticked that Bill Gates wasn't going to play along. So
they
parted ways. And IBM wouldn't sell any IBM computer with Windows
installed for a short time. Until IBM realized that they couldn't sell
IBM computers with either crappy PC-DOS or OS/2 on them. As
people wanted Windows instead, plain and simple.

The only reason being that M$ delayed OS/2 was so that Win 3.0 could get
the jump on it. If OS/2 would have shipped on time, it would have
possibly eliminated windows.

There are very many suspicious similarities in "bugs" within the
graphics system calls of Win 3.0 and OS/2.

The same MS programmers wrote both OS/2 and Windows 3.0. So why should
this be a surprise?

It's not a surprise to me. I think it just goes to show that M$ had no
qualms about directly lifting the code that they originally wrote for
IBM using IBM's money and, AFAICT, IBM's design goals. I'm not saying
that was illegal back then, but it certainly wouldn't happen in today's
IP obsessed world without bringing about major court battles.

Here was a true visionary: http://www.cadigital.com/kildall.htm

You obviously really like M$ so there probably isn't much point in
continuing this until it becomes a real ****ing contest. I run windos
on some machines because I basically have to. When I need something
that really works, I use Linux. :-)

Cooperative and Preemptive Multitasking [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 15:02:52 GMT

"Bob Masta" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:53:25 GMT, "BillW50" wrote:

All DOS applications ran under Windows 3.1 preemptively.

I hadn't heard of this before. Can you explain how it worked?
I had the impression that the DOS application took over and
Windows apps didn't get any time at all. If there were time
slices for Windows apps, do you recall how they did this?

It was basically a form of cooperative multitasking.

A form of cooperative tasking my eye! Each VDM session uses the Intel
v86 (Virtual-8086) mode. Windows 3.1 and later as well as OS/2 uses v86
mode to preemptive task DOS and other VDM sessions.

When the DOS app called INT21 functions or made BIOS calls, Windos
could then regain control of the machine. Hardly what I'd call
preemptive multitasking.

Doesn't sound right to me. As Windows uses (since W3.1) the CPUs v86
mode (Task State Segments) to support multitasking to preemptive task
all VDM sessions through Windows Virtual Machine Manager (VMM). Every
manual I have ever read (and I just searched the Internet as well) calls
this preemptive tasking. Looks like you're alone to me.

It is my opinion that even XP doesn't qualify as a proper OS. Any
OS that allows an errant application to hang things up is not
right.

Under any x86 machine, any buggy ring 0 code can take out any OS, bar
none! It's not just a Windows limitation, but effects *all* OS. Yes, any
clever programmer who wants to take out an x86 machine running any OS
can indeed do so (with administrator privileges of course).

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

Cooperative and Preemptive Multitasking [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Anthony Fremont writes:

It is my opinion that even XP doesn't qualify as a proper OS. Any
OS
that allows an errant application to hang things up is not right.

XP does not allow applications to do that, unless they have the proper
privileges.

That's what they say, but.......

Unfortunately, many Windows applications today won't run without
elaborate privileges, and if they contain bugs, they can hang the
system. That's not the fault of the OS; if you tell it to run an
application as the administrator, it will, and all bets are off.

Right, you don't really have much choice but to use the machine as an
admin. I log into Linux all the time as root though, and I run plenty
of bad code as root and it promptly segfaults and that's basically it.
You'd have to go to pretty good lengths to write code that would hang
Linux just because you ran it as root. Hanging the kernel is primarily
accomplished by device drivers, which are running in kernel space, so
all bets are really off there. My point is that hanging windows is
allot easier. On Linux it's fairly tricky just getting into position to
be able to start slapping the kernel around unless you're a device
driver of course.

Even so, modern Windows applications are generally extremely stable,

I'm not sure I really agree with that. It's probably a point of view
kinda thing. My background is in the mainframe world originally doing
online TP, so my definition of stability tends to be different from many
people. The same goes for security. Even Linux upsets me greatly at
times, especially MythTV and the ivtv driver. But that tends to be the
fault of the third party programmers and not the Linux kernel.

and XP is even more stable still. I can't remember the last time I
saw an XP system crash. If the hardware fails, it may crash. A bad

I can't fault the OS if hardware dies but, depending upon the particular
hardware, the driver might be graceful about it.

driver can still crash it in certain situations. But that's it. Even
the Windows Explorer, a bastion of fragile instability when it was
first transplanted from Windows 95 into Windows NT 4.0, now rarely if
ever causes any problems.

Come to think of it, not only can I not remember the last time I saw
an XP system crash, I can't remember the last time I saw it lock up.

Unfortunately, I can. Granted XP is better than their previous
offerings, but that's like saying it's better than a poke in the eye.
;-)

Cooperative and Preemptive Multitasking [ Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?]
 

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 15:02:52 GMT

"Bob Masta" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:53:25 GMT, "BillW50"
wrote:

All DOS applications ran under Windows 3.1 preemptively.

I hadn't heard of this before. Can you explain how it worked?
I had the impression that the DOS application took over and
Windows apps didn't get any time at all. If there were time
slices for Windows apps, do you recall how they did this?

It was basically a form of cooperative multitasking.

A form of cooperative tasking my eye! Each VDM session uses the Intel
v86 (Virtual-8086) mode. Windows 3.1 and later as well as OS/2 uses
v86
mode to preemptive task DOS and other VDM sessions.

When the DOS app called INT21 functions or made BIOS calls, Windos
could then regain control of the machine. Hardly what I'd call
preemptive multitasking.

Doesn't sound right to me. As Windows uses (since W3.1) the CPUs v86
mode (Task State Segments) to support multitasking to preemptive task

Well sure it has a TSS, otherwise you couldn't switch tasks very easily.
The TSS holds all the context information (registers, pc, ldt etc...)
required to put the task back into execution without it freaking out.
It's just a mechanism to make it easy, but it doesn't magically
interrupt a running task.

Windows could use the timer tick ints to accomplish task switching or it
could even set up another spare timer to generate interrupts for task
switching. Those would then safestore the TSS values for the running
task when the interrupt occurs and then transfer control thru the
interrupt vector to the dispatcher (or whatever M$ calls it). Using a
timer of some sort could make it preemptive since they could then
conceivably interrupt between any two instructions. AFAIK though, they
just depended upon the system calls to resume control.

all VDM sessions through Windows Virtual Machine Manager (VMM). Every
manual I have ever read (and I just searched the Internet as well)
calls
this preemptive tasking. Looks like you're alone to me.

It is my opinion that even XP doesn't qualify as a proper OS. Any
OS that allows an errant application to hang things up is not
right.

Under any x86 machine, any buggy ring 0 code can take out any OS, bar
none! It's not just a Windows limitation, but effects *all* OS. Yes,
any
clever programmer who wants to take out an x86 machine running any OS
can indeed do so (with administrator privileges of course).

That's why there is 4 ring levels supported in hardware. Too bad M$
doesn't utilize it properly, Linux wins hands down here and only uses 2
of the 4 levels.