On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 at 18:54:54, Marcel Kilgus wrote: (ref: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)
> >Witchy wrote: >> I found this list after googling for David Oliver and CST, who hopefully >> some of you will remember produced the Thor range of machines. Having got my >> paws on what I think used to be a working Thor WF2 (before someone removed >> the hard drive) the other week I'm trying to find any info I can on both the >> machine and CST themselves for my museum - URL is in my sig. > >Nice page you have there. Just allow me a few comments to the QL >section: > >"and the multitasking wasn't really 'multi' because background tasks >were paused." > >Not true. All tasks have always worked in parallel. With the advent of >the "pointer environment" tasks could get stopped if they wanted to do >something on the screen while their window was buried, but that's it. ... but there is an extension (pie?) that allowed background windows to update without pausing the programs. The QL multitasking since then has been 'real'. Maybe he is confusing the QL with task swapping on a 386/486 PC (8-)# > >"In true Sinclair style it was marketed long before it was ready, >resulting in initial shipments needing an extra ROM 'dongle' out the >back because they couldn't fit SuperBASIC into (I think) 32K." > >48K. yes, 48k - and not just superbasic - the whole O/S. This was the great thing about the QL. It was ready to go without having to load the O/S from file, with a full basic supported command line. -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@<surname>.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG