Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 14:04:13 JST
From: Stephen Turnbull <turnbull AT shako DOT sk DOT tsukuba DOT ac DOT jp>
To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: Multi-tasking
Reply-To: turnbull AT ecolan DOT sbs DOT ohio-state DOT edu

I like *all* the ideas proposed so far.  I own DV/X, but it would be
nice to be able to give away a simple multi-tasking environment to
show people what can be done.  In particular, I'd like to be running
DEmacs, TeX, and a TeX previewer simultaneously.  I've almost got this
working under DV/X (I don't think the problem is DV/X, my Emacs and
TeX are Japanese-language versions and most of the problems seem to be
keyboard and screen-related).  With support for fork(), DEmacs could
run TeX and the previewer in subshells.  DV and DV/X are far too cheap
to screw QuarterDeck by leaving pirated (or legal but pirateable)
copies on the public machines.
    The idea of having one copy of GO32 service all the applications
has its attractions.  I spent an hour one day trying to figure out
where all the space in my laptop's RAM went, when I realized that using
Backus's ports of the FSF utilities left me with maybe four copies of
GO32 in RAM (under DV/X, space can get pretty cramped).
   I have looked into 386BSD and will check out Linux, but I do a lot
of pro bono support for DOS- and Windows-bound friends and colleagues.
I don't like using pure DOS, even temporarily to help a buddy, but I
can't in good conscience recommend Un*x to my ls-phobic friends.  And
the Windows users---sheesh.  It would take me personally about ten
minutes to switch all my professional activities to Unix (all I need
is TeX, Emacs, Maple, email, FTP, and Telnet), but a lot of my
playtime activities are still DOS-bound.  And it's still a lot easier
to fit a DOS system into a notebook (6MB RAM, 80MB HDD still seems
pretty big).  So DOS isn't going away.
    Having spoken of DEmacs and DV/X in the same breath, I ask: has
anybody started to/thought of/heard of someone doing a port of Epoch?
I've got the source but have never done anything like this before.
    --Steve
[NB Reply-to address ... I'll be back in Ohio Monday.]