Seamless Windows Worry
Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!sthiagar
From: sthia...@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (sivasailam thiagarajan)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Seamless Windows Worry (Long, sorry!)
Message-ID: <1992Feb19.235315.26629@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: 19 Feb 92 23:53:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: bronze.1992Feb19.235315.26629
Organization: Indiana University
Lines: 65
There's something that's bothering me about seamless Windows support.
I'm posting this message in the hopes that someone can straighten me
out.
Currently, if I'm running under Real MS-DOS 5 (tm) and Real Windows
3.0 (tm), my system is pretty much useless if I have a long job. For
instance, if I need to print a long document, I issue the "Print"
command and walk away for ~20 minutes. While Windows purports to
multitask, trying to do useful work while printing is almost as
fruitless as trying to do floppy disk access (e.g. formatting disks or
installing a program) in the background. (It isn't the main thrust of this
posting, but does anyone know why background floppy access is so slow
under Windows 3.0?)
Under the 6F.167 beta of OS/2 2.0, on the other hand, I can launch my
print job and then type CTRL-ESC to switch to the OS/2 desktop. From
there, I can start other DOS or OS/2 programs. I could (for instance)
enter Softerm and connect to the Internet. In fact that's what I'm
doing now. Yes, it slows down my Windows print job, but so what? It's
a lot cheaper to have the computer waste a few extra minutes than to
have *me* waste 20 minutes.
Here's a bit of theory. When you're programming for PM, you're *never*
supposed to let your program take more than 1/10th of a second to
respond to window messages. Suppose your program is doing a long job.
The user gets tired of waiting for it to do whatever it's doing and
types (for example) CTRL-ESC to get to the task list. The problem is,
this keyboard message is sent to your piggy program, and your piggy
program is too busy with the long job to respond. *Eventually* a
dialog will pop up and the user will be permitted to kill your
program, in the grounds that it's not responding.
Under OS/2, the preferred way to do long jobs is to use
multi-threading. You have one thread handle the long job while the
main thread keeps responding to window messages.
The thing that scares me is this: ALL WINDOWS PROGRAMS ARE
SINGLE-THREADED. Thus, if my Win3 programs are running on the same
desktop as my OS/2 programs, doesn't it mean that once I've launched
my 20-minute Win3 print job, I *won't* be able to switch away, and I
*won't* be able to resize/minimize my Win3 program's window?
Note that this *isn't* an issue with 6F.167 because I *don't* have
seamless Windows. When I type CTRL-ESC, OS/2 can just save a bitmap of
my whole Windows desktop and switch me to the totally different OS/2
desktop. When I switch back to Windows, it can put the saved bitmap
back onscreen. (I doubt it does anything this inefficient, but it
*could*)
So, to reiterate my question, will running my Win3 programs seamlessly
tie up OS/2 during long jobs? And if so, can I run OS/2 without
seamless Windows?
I *hope* I'm wrong, and someone can (gently) straighten me out. If
anyone out there has a beta with seamless Windows support, could they
try a long Win3 job and let us know if they can resize/ minimize/
otherwise switch to another program?
Raja Thiagarajan
(sthia...@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu)
PS: I'm sorry to use up so much bandwidth, but this is a fairly
technical problem that takes a lot of space to explain. See pages
268-269 of Deitel & Kogan's _Design of OS/2_ for a more in-depth (and
coherent!) explanation of the problem.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
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From: s...@ellis.uchicago.edu (Timothy F. Sipples)
Subject: Re: Seamless Windows Worry (Long, sorry!)
Message-ID: <1992Feb20.031005.19222@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: n...@uchinews.uchicago.edu (News System)
Reply-To: s...@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Dept. of Econ., Univ. of Chicago
References: <1992Feb19.235315.26629@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1992 03:10:05 GMT
In article <1992Feb19.235315.26...@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
sthia...@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (sivasailam thiagarajan) writes:
>The thing that scares me is this: ALL WINDOWS PROGRAMS ARE
>SINGLE-THREADED. Thus, if my Win3 programs are running on the same
>desktop as my OS/2 programs, doesn't it mean that once I've launched
>my 20-minute Win3 print job, I *won't* be able to switch away, and I
>*won't* be able to resize/minimize my Win3 program's window?
Not to worry -- OS/2 is a preemptive multitasker. Windows programs
are allowed (even expected) to be "rude." But OS/2 is really in
charge. CTRL-ESC will work, the mouse will work, and you should be
all set.
You'll still have the option of running the Windows desktop full
screen if you prefer that method.
--
Timothy F. Sipples Keeper of the OS/2 Frequently Asked Questions
s...@ellis.uchicago.edu List, available via anonymous ftp from
Dept. of Economics 130.57.4.1, directory os2/faq, or via netmail
Univ. of Chicago 60637 from LISTS...@BLEKUL11.BITNET.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!gatech!news.ans.net!yktnews!admin!avalon!dwl
From: d...@watson.ibm.com (David W. Levine)
Subject: Re: Seamless Windows Worry (Long, sorry!)
Sender: n...@watson.ibm.com (NNTP News Poster)
Message-ID: <1992Feb20.041047.42837@watson.ibm.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1992 04:10:47 GMT
Reply-To: d...@watson.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
References: <1992Feb19.235315.26629@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Nntp-Posting-Host: avalon.watson.ibm.com
Organization: IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
I don't think you've got anything to worry about. The PM desktop and your
windows program are not going to be that closely coupled. The Windows
programs going to be actually running in a emulated 8086 session managed
by OS/2 2.0, which will be around to timeslice your windows session and
generally do the things an operating system is supposed to do. While
seamless windows is going to get your display output onto the PM desktop,
and feed your application keystrokes and mouse clicks, its not running
your application anywhere near it in any other sense.
This is where OS/2 2.0 wins big over Windows. There's a genuine operating
system controlling the machine, not a souped up program loader and
filesystem (eg DOS)
David W. Levine -- IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
d...@watson.ibm.com -- (914) 784-7427
My Opinions, IBM's hardware. --