[Coco] CoCo and Multitasking

[L. Curtis Boyle]

Level 1 multitasking did come with OS-9 Level 1 in late 1983 (using the shell ‘&’ command), but because there was no windowing, it was of somewhat limited use (most people I knew used it for things like print spooling). For those that actually hooked up terminals, though, you could use if for multitasking that way.

Level 2 - depends on how you did it. The official Level II did not get release until the beginning of 1987, however, Kevin Darling and others hacked a bootable Level II based on the Rogue disk in late 1986, which included an earlier version of Grfint/Grfdrv that did allow windowing (if you hacked descriptors for it). I think this happened around the October 1986 time frame, from what I remember reading on Compuserve (and doing it myself).

L. Curtis Boyle
curtisboyle at sasktel.net



> On Nov 7, 2014, at 7:53 AM, Bill Pierce via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Tom, I think OS9 Level 2 for the Coco 3 came out in '87(?). The Coco 3 itself (and the Tandy 1000EX) was announced on July 30th 1986 at a Tandy press conferrence at the Waldorf Historia in New York, and was on the RS shelves by early September 86. OS9 L2 was "announced" at the Coco 3 press conference, but it was a while after the Coco 3 was out before it was actually released. The Coco 3 didn't appear in the catalogs until the 87 issue, but did appear in the 86 Christmas sale papers.
> The Develepor's System disk was even later as was Multi-Vue. I could scan through some old Rainbows and RS catalogs and get actual dates if needed.
> As a side note, OS9 Level 2 itself was already out before the Coco 3 , but for other machines. Not sure how much "actual" multi-tasking could be done. If I remember right, OSk was already out too.
> Level 1 would "sort of" multi-Task as you could run a (very) small program in the background while you were doing something else... if both programs would fit in 64k (along with the system) as long as one didn't need user input or screen space.
> 
> 
> 
> Bill Pierce
> "Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens
> 
> 
> My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
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> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Seagrove <tjseagrove at writeme.com>
> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Fri, Nov 7, 2014 6:33 am
> Subject: [Coco] CoCo and Multitasking
> 
> 
> What year did the CoCo first gain the ability to "multitask" ?? 1986 with OS9 
> Level II?
> 
> Tom
> 
> 
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