MTASK v2.0

MTASK is a unit for Turbo Pascal 5.5, to allow a Turbo Pascal
program to exhibit simple multi-tasking.  MTASK gives your
program a non-preemptive, request driven multi-tasking
capability.  I will explain what I mean by that later.

The file MTASK20.ZIP contains the following files:

     MTASK.DOC      Documentation in Multi-Edit format
     MTASK.PAS      The source code for the MTASK unit
     MTASK.PRN      Documentation, ready to print
     READ.ME        Last minute notes (this file)
     TEST1.PAS      Demonstration program using MTASK

I hope you have as much fun using MTASK as I did writing it!

MTASK 2.0 was written and donated to the public domain by Wayne
E. Conrad (me) in March of 1990.  I may be contact via my BBS,

     Pascalaholics Anonymous
     (602) 484-9356
     300/1200/2400 bps
     24 hours/day

or by mail at my home:

     10 E Bell Road #1001
     Phoenix, AZ  85022

I am interested in any modifications, bug reports, or comments
you have.

If you modify this package, please keep my name and the name of
any other programmers who've worked on it intact.  Give credit to
yourself, too!  Please distribute the complete package, with
documentation and demonstration programs included.


1.1 INTRODUCTION


MTASK allows your Turbo Pascal program to do simple multi-tasking.
I call MTASK's brand of multi-tasking "non-preemptive, request
driven."

Preemptive means that the switch from one task to another can
happen at almost any time.  Most preemptive systems have an
interrupt driver hooked to a hardware timer, which causes a task
switch every time the hardware timer goes off.  The advantage of
this kind of multi-tasking is that your programs don't have to be
written with multi-tasking in mind, and don't even have to know
that its taking place.  Also, no program can hog the system for
long, because the interrupt driver switches from one program to
another fairly often.  Desqview and Double-DOS, and OS/2 are
operating environments that