Multitasking

[moxie]

I blame Apple for making it seem like multitasking on a device newer than an Apple II is a big deal.

Ah. I was confused as to why this was an issue, but now I understand.

 

[efegea]

Well in desktop mode, it obviously multitasks the same as any other Linux desktop.

I'm curious how (if?) multitasking is handled in pmenu / minimenu.

Do the dedicated app launchers actually implement any sort of task switching?

Not yet. At the moment, they're purely designed for gaming - and you don't play more than one game at once.

It's possible to implement a taskswitcher, though. They all run X, so switching is possible.

I plan to make Pangea full multitasking, with taskswitcher, but not now, it'll take a long for me to implement, there are priorities.

BTW, I'll soon email you about the first working version of Pangea, as the Qt libs version 4.7 are finally in beta, still some bugs but close to the final version. I stil have a few things to implement and do a lite of polishing on the grahics, and see how it performs on the real device. Well the performance is something that you, with a real Pandora, will have to test

 

[Exophase]

Ah. I was confused as to why this was an issue, but now I understand.

The whole mobile world moves accordingly with how Apple snaps their fingers. Just look at how many people think it's outrageous for a handheld to have gaming controls, or even any kind of buttons at all. Most mobile devices in this size class out now are really similar to iPhone hardware-wise, with even the ones sporting keyboards being squashed.

We were all preemptively multitasking on our Windows 95 PCs with 486s. That we can pull it off on mobile hardware much more powerful should be a given, but I suppose a lot of new users don't know these things. Apple's decisions are more tactical and political than technical.

 

[kingoddball]

Exo: You're not a big fan of Apple are you?

First it was Microsoft that the world hated and Apple was the golden child (at least it was for me).

Now it seems to have done a nice flip.

Apple has a strangle hold on the mobile devices and even their line of desktops/laptops are coming up in a big way.

 

[quadomatic]

Better than an iPad, that's for sure

 

[moxie]

Ah. I was confused as to why this was an issue, but now I understand.

The whole mobile world moves accordingly with how Apple snaps their fingers. Just look at how many people think it's outrageous for a handheld to have gaming controls, or even any kind of buttons at all.

People. I don't understand them. But I guess that's why I'm sitting here with a badly paying teacher job instead of being an IT millionaire

I got a new mobile the other day - An LG GW620 (or 'Etna' or whatever). Android, of course, and a slide-out proper keyboard (that is actually quite usable, despite its size). People ask "But why not an iPhone? They're not that expensive now?". Because it is broken by design - No keyboard. People look at me funny. I still have to fumble about on the touch screen to dial a number, of course, but the 12 number buttons actually get up to a reasonable size on-screen. The idea that people want to do stuff like twittering or typing URLs into the web browser using that hunt-the-flyspeck onscreen thingy...

People. I do not understand them.

- We have decided that our next model, the iPrat, will have Absolutely No Controls At All! That is right - The user (or, as we call them, the "iPrat Community Companion(tm)") will have no way to influence the operations of the device, so that he can instead concentrate on leaning back and Experiencing The iPrat(tm)!

*wild cheering*

*chant from the snazzily dressed, design conscious and not at all unwashed masses, thankyouverymuch*: "Iiits sooo juserfieeendlyyyy"

- Oh, did we mention that you can get it in 16 colours?

*massive designerasm*

People. I don't understand them.

</rant off>

 

[paddy]

I have found that the main problem with multitasking on any hardware, the bottleneck, is the storage format ,if using a hardrive or dedicated solid state drive it is fine/running directly to the ide ports ,but using an external hard drive there is a date write read hit becase of usb but still not too big an issue ,using small memory sticks and memory cards especially memory cards the data write/read can be fast yes but really bad for two or more write/reads and this is the bottleneck if you want to multitask in an OS enviroment ,the hardware itself cpu/memory are not really the issue.

This is mainly true with software that needs to read/write all the time or periodically and just kills everything ,my experience of this is with a desktop and a notebook running linux and windows via hd/ssd - usbhd - memorycard/usbstick ,when using usbstick or sd memory card or card reader via usb you can have most apps running fine but things like web browser media player chat IM apps and large game installs are just not possible without speed issues and or lockups at some point.

I asked Ed before about multitasking but he would not do a video of my request ,web browser running ,media player online stream running and emulator running in window all on desktop ,i don't think this would be possible but apparently with the pandora OS this is possible because it is built around the pandora,we can wait and see.

 

[EvilDragon]

I asked Ed before about multitasking but he would not do a video of my request ,web browser running ,media player online stream running and emulator running in window all on desktop ,i don't think this would be possible but apparently with the pandora OS this is possible because it is built around the pandora,we can wait and see.

Except for maybe the emulator (which needs a lot of CPU power), it works

 

[paddy]

Thanks for that reply Ed ,this is what i always wanted to know and was a little worried about it so big thanks for clearing that up ,sounds like the pandora will be pretty good on the desktop then ,listening to music while browsing the net and mabe taking notes, pretty good stuff.

 

[atomicthumbs]

No, we're working backwards like the OS release names. By the time we get to Pandora OS 'Altered Beast' it won't even have application support.

wise fwom yo gwave

 

[kingoddball]

hahahahahaha! Altered beast and the wise fwom yo gwave speach was awesome!



BUT BUT BUT BUT!!!!

What about for 'B'!?

I KNOW!!

BUBSY!

 

[fanoush]

We were all preemptively multitasking on our Windows 95 PCs with 486s.

Yuck. That was pretty gross statement. As an Amiga owner I was definitely not doing that ;-)

There were no Windows 95 PCs when A500 came in 1987. Even when I upgraded to A1200 (20MB HDD, 68030/28MHz turbocard) in 1993, still no Windows 95 PCs around ;-)

 

[SomeGuy99]

We were all preemptively multitasking on our Windows 95 PCs with 486s.

Yuck. That was pretty gross statement. As an Amiga owner I was definitely not doing that ;-)

There were no Windows 95 PCs when A500 came in 1987. Even when I upgraded to A1200 (20MB HDD, 68030/28MHz turbocard) in 1993, still no Windows 95 PCs around ;-)

Even DOS can support some form of multi-tasking using either DOS SHELL or Software Carousel.

There was a version of the latter produced for the 200LX on request from Stanley Kubrick no less.

http://www.hplx.net/reviews.ssc.html

 

[moxie]

Even DOS can support some form of multi-tasking using either DOS SHELL or Software Carousel.

There was a version of the latter produced for the 200LX on request from Stanley Kubrick no less.

http://www.hplx.net/reviews.ssc.html

The HP200lx is still an Awesome Thing.

When I get a pandora, I'll make a "History of portable computing" photo, from the Epson HX-20 to the Pandora, with stuff like the 200lx and the Psion 5x inbetween.

Just wanted to say. Carry on, everybody.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Even DOS can support some form of multi-tasking using either DOS SHELL or Software Carousel.

There was a version of the latter produced for the 200LX on request from Stanley Kubrick no less.

http://www.hplx.net/reviews.ssc.html

The HP200lx is still an Awesome Thing.

When I get a pandora, I'll make a "History of portable computing" photo, from the Epson HX-20 to the Pandora, with stuff like the 200lx and the Psion 5x inbetween.

Just wanted to say. Carry on, everybody.

I wonder if the Pandora will reach as far? For example, being used by NASA and famous users like Stanley Kubrick and Paddy Ashdown.

We need to get a Pandora into space, because that would rock!

Oh, more about DOS taskswitching:

http://www.palmtoppaper.com/ptphtml/24/pt240022.htm

 

[moxie]

We need to get a Pandora into space, because that would rock!

Oh, more about DOS taskswitching:

http://www.palmtoppaper.com/ptphtml/24/pt240022.htm

Indeed!

Although, to be fair, that is taskswitching, not multitasking.

 

[SomeGuy99]

We need to get a Pandora into space, because that would rock!

Oh, more about DOS taskswitching:

http://www.palmtoppaper.com/ptphtml/24/pt240022.htm

Indeed!

Although, to be fair, that is taskswitching, not multitasking.

Shhhhh.

There was a program to run two DOS programs at once though. I can't remember the name of it at the moment. Dos Doubler?

 

[Monk]

I suspect Dos Doubler compressed your hard drive so you could store more. You may be thinking of DR DOS 6, or even Concurrent DOS though?

 

[skeezix]

Desqview?

 

[hch]

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/KernelAnalysis-HOWTO-6.html