Newsgroups: comp.constraints
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!yeshua.marcam.com!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!hbaker
From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry G. Baker)
Subject: Re: timesharing
Message-ID: <hbakerCyKy0A.8pI@netcom.com>
Organization: nil
References: <3919rg$ojr@news.bu.edu>
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 08:24:10 GMT
Lines: 20

In article <3919rg$ojr@news.bu.edu> elzbieta@cs.bu.edu (elzbieta klimowicz) writes:
>can anybody help me with this problem:
>
>if CPU of a timesharing computer has to execute two programs, one is mostly
>input/output operations and the other one is computations, which program
>would be given priority?

Why you are asking this newsgroup is beyond my comprehension.
Nevertheless, here goes.  Assuming that the I/O bound program will run
in an _overlapped_ fashion (i.e., asynchronously), the giving the I/O
bound program higher priority won't really slow down the cpu-bound
program, but will assure that the I/O bound program will finish as
soon as possible.  If you don't have real time-sharing, but only
multiprogramming, then this may be the _only_ way to get the I/O
program any cycles.

      Henry Baker
      Read ftp.netcom.com:/pub/hbaker/README for info on ftp-able papers.
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