Note: The first uploaded arc of mtos contained compaction errors that preventd usability. This has been repaired in this version. John Nagy, chaos bbs (517) 371-1106 M. ulti-T. asking O. perating S. ystem M. T. O. S
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| NOTE: The first uploaded ARC of MTOS contained compaction errors that PREVENTD usability. This has been REPAIRED in this version. John Nagy, CHAOS BBS (517) 371-1106 M.ulti-T.asking O.perating S.ystem M.T.O.S. MT-OS MTOS Copyright (C) 1987 by Tom Hunt (beta test version) 12-25-87 (Merry Christmas Atarians, from me to you!) MTOS is a revolutionary new O.S for Atari 8-bit computers with 256k (or more). It is actually a O.S. extention, since it works with the resident ROM based Atari O.S., and with DOS. With MTOS installed, the multitasking environment is made available to the Atari owner This document is divided into the following sections, WHAT MULTITASKING IS, WHAT MULTITASKING ISN'T, WHAT MTOS IS, AND WHAT IT CAN DO, WHAT MTOS ISN'T, AND WHAT IT CAN'T DO, GETTING STARTED, and SPECIAL NOTES. If the subject of time-sharing/multitasking is new to you, then you should read the whole text. _______________________________________________________________________________ WHAT MULTITASKING IS _______________________________________________________________________________ Everyone seems to know a little about what multitasking is. Simply put, multitasking is a computer operating environment that allows more than one program to be run at the same time. There is a form of multitasking that occurs during the regular Atari computer functions. These are slices of time in which your program is interrupted by hardware signals, and system control is turned over to the O.S. for the purpose of performing system tasks. The VBI and DLI are two interrupts that you've probably heard about. During these interrupts, you can even make the O.S. perform some tasks that you've made provision for, by pointing the appropriate vector to point to your m.l. routine. But the realm of multitasking is a realm whose domain has been traditionally the MINI and MAIN FRAME computers. These large computers are not only capable of multitasking, but are also capable of supporting the MULTI-USER environment. In a situation like this, individual users have a job (aka task, program, application) running on his/her assigned terminal. To each user, it appears as tho they have the sole use of the computer's resources. Before multiuser/ multitasking, users had to wait for their turn to use the computer. But using modern operating systems, time sharing is a common thing. Think about time being a pie, and time-sharing as slices of that pie. Each job is assigned a slice of the time pie. Some jobs get assigned bigger slices than others, depending on their priority. So multitasking is a valuable asset if you want to do some word-processing, while another program is working on some other task in the background. _______________________________________________________________________________ WHAT MULTITASKING ISN'T _______________________________________________________________________________ There is an old saying- "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch!". In other words, multitasking is system taxing! You can have one program hogging 100% of the system's resources, or 2 programs sharing 50% of the system's resources, and so on... The pie never gets any bigger, you just cut the slices smaller. Plus, there is the O.S. overhead involved in the juggling. That is, each time a task's clock counts down to zero, the multitasker has to jump in there to do house-keeping to get things ready for the next task on the agenda. This house keeping eats up machine cycles, and might account fo 4% of the time pie with only 2 jobs running. With 3 jobs running, it goes up to 8%. With 6 jobs run- ning it goes up to a whopping 20%!! So, the more jobs you have running, the slower your programs will execute. A multitasking environment will not give you more processing power. It will only distribute processing among different jobs. _______________________________________________________________________________ WHAT MTOS IS, AND WHAT IT CAN DO _______________________________________________________________________________ MTOS follows the discription about multitasking and time sharing. It allows the Atari computer owner to run up to 6 tasks at the same time. In the past, this kind of system environment was totaly unavailable to us. Now you can be using a word processor, flip to a basic game, flip to check on the progress of a program doing calculations, then flip back to your word processor. And all while each individual program is running! You can write your own programs that are compatable with MTOS, if a few simple rules are observed. These rules will be discussed later. _______________________________________________________________________________ WHAT MTOS ISN'T, AND WHAT IT CANNOT DO _______________________________________________________________________________ As you add jobs to MTOS, each program will seem to run slower. For some programs, this is unacceptable. Other programs, like a word processor, spend alot of wasted time in loops, waiting for events to occur. Like waiting for a keypress. CPU time could be put to better use with MTOS. The amount of memory available to each program is limited to 16k. The amount of screen ram allocated to each task is 1280 bytes, enough for GRAPHICS 0,1, 2,3,4,5,6,12, and 13. The programs running under MTOS must be "well behaved". That is to say that they shouldn't steal the VVBLKD vector, or the VKEYBD vectors. They shouldn't interfere with any memory above $7FFF, or from $2600-$3FFF. If you do so, you risk either interferring with another program, or at worse, a total system crash. Any free and legal addresses from $0000-$0500 (with the exception of the above mentioned vectors!) MAY be used! If your program doesn't follow the rules, there is nothing to prevent it from doing so. On the CPU's used by large computers is a mask that will not allow any illegal addressing, and will return an error message to the user. The 6502 family of CPU's don't have this capability. M.l. programs must be assembeled to reside from $4000-$7FFF. Your booting game disks are definatly not MTOS compatable. These programming constraints of the multitasking environment are not out of the ordanary, since program- mers working on a mainframe computer must make "well behaved" programs, also. _______________________________________________________________________________ GETTING STARTED _______________________________________________________________________________ There is a built-in keyboard buffer in MTOS. Sparta dos users need to KEY OFF before loading MTOS. MTOS may be used with or without BASIC, but if you want to mix running both m.l. and BASIC programs, be sure to boot without holding down the option key. When MTOS initializes, you will be looking at the executor screen. The executor program (called Exec) will be running, and reserves task #0 for itself. You should press a 1 to initialize a new task. After this, You can press a 1 to initialze a m.l. program, or a 2 to initialize a basic program. There is also a test mode that is initialized by a 3. You will be prompted for the amount of clocks to be assigned to the new task. 2-9 is the normal amount, but you can input any single character. That character will have $30 subtracted from it's atascii value, and the new value used for the amount of core clocks assinged to the new task. For instance, if you would input a F, the value 16 would be the amount of core clocks assigned. If you chose the m.l. option (2), you will be prompted for the filespec of the object file. A m.l. program has to obey the rules (see above)! The process will then be executed to get either the basic cartridge or your m.l. program initialized. To detach from Exec, and attach to the job you just started, press 2 to (view) the job. You will be prompted for which job, which you choose from the ones listed on the Exec screen as being active. If you did everything as described above, you should now have your terminal attached to the new task, and if you chose basic, you should be looking at basic's familiar READY prompt. To detach and go back to Exec, have your joystick plugged in to the second port (actually PORT1), and press the trigger. _______________________________________________________________________________ SPECIAL NOTES _______________________________________________________________________________ This is a beta test version, and I request that you please keep detailed notes about bugs, and send them to me, Tom Hunt. This will help me greatly in getting MTOS in to the kind of shape that the Atari owner deserves. Please note what kind of jobs were running, in what order, and what exactly happens when the bug shows. This beta version is just that, a test version to work out bugs. The m.l. loader routine only loads single stage load files. This will be worked on to multi-stage load files. Also, the m.l. loader routine seems good for only one load at this time. The balance of tasks have to be basic, or test-loops. I have to work on moving the screens to different locations, since sometimes the editor balks at where some of them are presently located. Because of this problem, some task combinations work better than others (with this beta version). Just note the ones that work good, and be patient for version 1.0 to be released. I will also be working to support the Sparta dos 128k ramdisk ("RD D8: /E"), so you can use a ramdisk with your MTOS programs. The beta version should NOT be used with any ramdisk. It can be loaded from a ramdisk, but will then use the extended ram banks, corrupting any files in the ramdisk. There is a rudimentary TOOLKIT available, and also under development. The entry point to the TOOLKIT'S routines will be published later. Also, this version is compatable only with the internal memory upgrades, NOT with the MIO. The keyboard buffer and the keyboard mask is still being worked on, so you might have some difficulty with keystrokes being sent to the wrong task. In the best of Atari traditions, page 6 of memory is up for grabs. I suggest that you avoid using it when developing a program for MTOS. If you make an interesting program for MTOS, please upload it to The Balloon Works bbs. The number is 419-289-8392. Don't wait for somebody else to make MTOS compatable programs, do it yourself! It really isn't hard if you follow the simple rules mentioned above. If you don't have a password on The Balloon Works bbs, and you want to contact me, just leave a message in any of the message bases, and I'll spot it. Tom Hunt Directory: ~archive -> atari -> 8bit 8bit -> '. Then you should save it with the command 'save "D: uudecode. Bas" 8bit -> By matthew ratcliff (synopsis) This look inside the Atari xe game System includes two programs Download 10.96 Kb. Share with your friends:
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