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32-524: The first Macintosh was released in 1984, and Apple's developers made an early decision that the machine's 128 KB of RAM was so limited that they must abandon the application multitasking functionality that Apple had developed for the Lisa . As the successive Macintosh hardware models were released with much more RAM being the key feature, new programming techniques were developed as workarounds to allow users to run concurrent applications. Desk Accessories became

64-542: A big 80386 machine certainly does". In 1990, InfoWorld tested the four mainstream desktop multitasking options: DESQView, OS/2 1.2, Windows 3.0, and System 6 with MultiFinder. MultiFinder was viewed overall positively for speed, ease of use, and value. Its presence halved the speed of file transfer and printing compared to the single-tasking System 6 without MultiFinder, but this was still comparable to Windows and DesqView and much faster than OS/2. These tradeoffs were seen as typical of contemporary add-on multitaskers compared to

96-623: A copyright by Aubrac Systems , it makes over 200 direct calls to undocumented addresses in the Macintosh ROMs. This led to the accusations that Jwa van der Vuurst was merely an alias and that the program was actually from someone that worked at Apple and had significant knowledge on the Macintosh's inner workings. The app itself adds a second apple menu on the right side of the menu bar which displays all currently running application and allows switching between them. It also allows adjusting

128-581: A form of priority based task scheduling in the classic Mac OS, though they were unable to solve its other issues, like the lack of protected memory . Upon MultiFinder's 1987 release, PC Magazine noted it for beating IBM 's competing OS/2 multitasking operating system to market, and said the System with MultiFinder "isn't a true multitasking operating system, though it's much more than a context switcher". Jerry Pournelle of Byte in 1989 said that "while MultiFinder doesn't work very well yet, DESQView on

160-404: A primitive ability to recover from application crashes as well as force quit stuck applications that are no longer responding. The result is a user experience more intuitive than Switcher. While Servant's resource editing features are not as full featured as ResEdit, it does allow editing file icons. MultiFinder, known before its release as "Juggler", was introduced on August 11, 1987. It is simply

192-434: A programmer saw fit. ResEdit was one of the earliest examples of a GUI layout tool, an essential component for rapid application development . For example, the classic Mac OS defined a standard resource called a dialog template and a dialog items list (resource types 'DLOG' and 'DITL' respectively). In ResEdit, it was possible to simply create these types and add GUI elements to them in an almost WYSIWYG fashion, such that

224-467: A programmer to define a matching data structure in a chosen programming language, such as C, load the resource in a standard manner and access the data as the defined C type. ResEdit includes a number of predefined templates for many standard OS resources that do not require a graphical editor. ResEdit was never upgraded to run natively on PowerPC -based Macintoshes after the migration from Motorola 68000 series , and not on Mac OS X . Apple now discourages

256-651: A staple through the lifespan of System 6; and the Switcher would give way to the MultiFinder, which then became directly integrated into System 7. To allow some degree of freedom and to deliver the GUI's promise of interface consistency, the original Macintosh includes Desk Accessories , such as a calculator, that can be run concurrently. However, their functionality is deliberately limited in favor of RAM conservation. In fact, they are device drivers which take advantage of

288-750: A user interface could be designed directly as it would appear to the end user of the application. Later, the application code could create a functional dialog box using the stored resource data which matches the appearance you lay out in ResEdit. When ResEdit first appeared in the mid-1980s, this was a revolutionary innovation, today it is commonplace for programmers. ResEdit includes standard editors for window templates ( WIND ), menus ( MENU ), dialog boxes, controls ( CNTL ), color palettes ( clut and pltt ), icons ( ICON , cicn , ICN# ), and various other standard types. One of ResEdit's most powerful features (which first appeared with ResEdit version 2.0)

320-437: A way for windows from different applications to coexist by using a cooperative application layering model. Its initial release is able to handle only two concurrent applications, one of which runs in the background; and later releases allow many more concurrent applications. When an application is activated, all of its windows are brought forward as a single layer. This approach is necessary for backward compatibility with many of

352-499: Is approximately 1000. The binary interpretation of metric prefixes is still prominently used by the Microsoft Windows operating system. Binary interpretation is also used for random-access memory capacity, such as main memory and CPU cache size, due to the prevalent binary addressing of memory. The binary meaning of the kilobyte for 1024 bytes typically uses the symbol KB, with an uppercase letter K . The B

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384-518: Is sometimes omitted in informal use. For example, a processor with 65,536 bytes of cache memory might be said to have "64 K" of cache. In this convention, one thousand and twenty-four kilobytes (1024 KB) is equal to one megabyte (1 MB), where 1 MB is 1024  bytes. In December 1998, the IEC addressed such multiple usages and definitions by creating prefixes such as kibi, mebi, gibi, etc., to unambiguously denote powers of 1024. Thus

416-413: Is the ability to define arbitrary data structures as resources using a simple template building feature. Here, the programmer can simply add elemental data types to a list to define a template (itself stored as a resource of type TMPL ). This template allows ResEdit to build a GUI editor on the fly that allows entry of data and package it into the structure defined in the template. It's a simple matter for

448-519: Is unusual due to its lack of a scrollbar, instead requiring to hold and drag the window background like a modern map app. One of its most interesting features is the first known implementation of wallpapers on the Macintosh, allowing users to replace the default grey background with MacPaint or ThunderScan images. In comparison to Switcher, Servant allows users to open apps as they see fit instead of requiring you to select which apps you want to run first, then launching them inside Switcher. Switcher also has

480-454: The menu bar . The current application horizontally slides out of view, and the next one slides in. Though awkward, this approach does fit well with the existing system's memory management scheme, and applications need no special programming to work with Switcher. This early work on Switcher led to the development of MultiFinder by Apple system software engineers Erich Ringewald and Phil Goldman . Microsoft saw Switcher as especially benefiting

512-481: The Mac's resource fork architecture. It was an alternative to tools such as REdit, and the resource compiler Rez. For the average user, ResEdit was generally easier to use, because it used a graphical user interface . Although it had been intended to be a developer tool, power users often used it to edit icons, menus, and other elements of an application's GUI , customizing it to their own preferences. Resources on

544-408: The Macintosh could be of many different types, and in fact any arbitrary data could be turned into a resource. While the system defined many standard formats for particular kinds of resources (for example, an icon, or a window template), programmers were also free to define their own. ResEdit included support for editing many of the standard types and for creating arbitrary resources with any structure

576-515: The Macintosh system. Apple offered more money ( US$ 100,000 plus royalties) and the company planned to ship Switcher with the Macintosh 512K . The first official version of Switcher appeared in April 1985. Switcher works by designating a number of fixed slots in memory into which applications could be loaded. The user can then switch between these applications by clicking a small button on the top of

608-556: The applications' memory allocation size, disk cache and adds background multi-threaded copying similar to Speed Doubler's and Mac OS 8 's improved copy function. Servant was another attempt by Andy Hertzfeld at multitasking on the Macintosh, intended to solve Switcher's shortcomings. Released in September 1986, it was effectively a Finder, Switcher and ResEdit combined into one tool for the Macintosh Plus . Its file manager

640-432: The company's highly memory-optimized Macintosh applications so the utility was shipped with Excel . Microsoft stated that using multiple applications with Switcher was preferable to a single integrated software application like Lotus Symphony . By 1987, Compute! 's Apple Applications reported that "many Macintosh owners are comfortable only when using more than one application at a time. Switcher and desk accessories are

672-498: The early days. Andy Hertzfeld , one of Apple's original Macintosh software architects, wrote Switcher after seeing John Markoff use a terminate-and-stay-resident program on an IBM PC in October 1984. By the end of the year he had a working prototype, and he soon demonstrated it in public. Both Microsoft and Apple wanted to purchase the utility. Hertzfeld chose the latter because of his belief that Switcher should be bundled with

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704-452: The introduction of System 7. Later in 1987, System 6 engineer Erich Ringewald's desire to solve these architectural problems altogether would bring him to defiantly cofound and lead the Pink project as the intended future of a new MacOS, and then become chief software architect at Be Inc. to design BeOS in 1990. With the release of System 7 , the MultiFinder extension was integrated with

736-574: The kibibyte, symbol KiB, represents 2  bytes = 1024 bytes. These prefixes are now part of IEC 80000-13. The IEC further specified that the kilobyte should only be used to refer to 1000 bytes. The International System of Units restricts the use of the SI prefixes strictly to powers of 10. ResEdit ResEdit is a discontinued developer tool application for the Apple Macintosh , used to create and edit resources directly in

768-421: The multitasking system designed for hardware peripheral support. As such, their running environment is severely restricted. They can only draw a single window, which by default is given a special round-bordered appearance. Although the system software does little to specifically support them, the popularity of Desk Accessories led many application developers to ensure good cooperative multitasking support even from

800-553: The natively architected but less friendly OS/2. Kilobyte The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information . The International System of Units (SI) defines the prefix kilo as a multiplication factor of 1000 (10 ); therefore, one kilobyte is 1000 bytes. The internationally recommended unit symbol for the kilobyte is kB . In some areas of information technology , particularly in reference to random-access memory capacity, kilobyte instead typically refers to 1024 (2 ) bytes. This arises from

832-543: The operating system, and it remains so in Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 . However, the integration into the OS does nothing to fix MultiFinder's inherent idiosyncrasies and disadvantages. These problems were not overcome in the mainstream Macintosh operating system until the MultiFinder model was abandoned with the move to a modern preemptive multitasking Unix -based OS in Mac OS X . Two utilities, CPU Doubler and Peek-A-Boo, did implement

864-643: The prevalence of sizes that are powers of two in modern digital memory architectures, coupled with the coincidence that 2 differs from 10 by less than 2.5%. A kibibyte is 1024 bytes. In the International System of Units (SI) the metric prefix kilo means 1,000 (10 ); therefore, one kilobyte is 1000 bytes. The unit symbol is kB. This is the definition recommended by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). This definition, and

896-527: The related definitions of the prefixes mega ( 1,000,000 ), giga ( 1,000,000,000 ), etc., are most commonly used for data transfer rates in computer networks , internal bus, hard drive and flash media transfer speeds, and for the capacities of most storage media , particularly hard disk drives , flash -based storage, and DVDs . It is also consistent with the other uses of the metric prefixes in computing, such as CPU clock speeds or measures of performance . The international standard IEC 80000-13 uses

928-405: The term "byte" to mean eight bits (1 B = 8 bit). Therefore, 1 kB = 8000 bit. One thousand kilobytes (1000 kB) is equal to one megabyte (1 MB), where 1 MB is one million bytes. The term 'kilobyte' has traditionally been used to refer to 1024 bytes (2  B). The usage of the metric prefix kilo for binary multiples arose as a convenience, because 1024

960-442: The two most common examples of that philosophy". PC Magazine said that Switcher used too much of the system's precious little RAM and was not reliable enough. Multi-Mac is another application switching utility designed specifically for the Macintosh 512K, though it is more known for its mysteriousness. Showing up sometime in late 1985, after the introduction of Switcher, and being credited as being made by Jwa van der Vuurst with

992-475: The use of resource forks in new macOS applications, preferring the more portable NeXT -derived application bundles . A long-standing third-party commercial alternative named Resorcerer remains available, and more recently there have been a number of attempts to build open-source macOS-native resource editors, including one called ResKnife . ResEdit will run in Mac OS X's Classic compatibility mode , but Classic

MultiFinder - Misplaced Pages Continue

1024-527: The windowing data structures that were already documented. MultiFinder also provides a way for applications to supply their memory requirements ahead of time, so that MultiFinder can allocate a chunk of RAM to each according to need. This scheme, while functional, has severe limitations which cause many problems for users. Virtual memory was only available to contemporary Macs with a PMMU chip (Mac II-class machines required) and an extension named Virtual from Connectix . Apple eventually provided virtual memory with

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