OSDev.org

I haven't yet got multitasking working but I'm wondering how exactly am I going to do multitasking in console mode cause there is no windows or anything like that so really how will i switch or see the other

Look at the way UNIX shells work...they where doing multitasking way back in the '70s dude!

bash is my favorite shell

back in the '70s dude!

OMG like didn't they barely have batch systems then

Also look at Dos TSR thats basic multi-tasking.

hckr83 wrote:OMG like didn't they barely have batch systems then

No batch processing was early '60s.

Virtual consoles are how Unix environments handle interacting with mulitple programs on a single machine. My computer has 6 including the 7th's X console. Since you've asked this question, I've assumed you've never use a *nix environment, so I'll explain it to you. Virtual console fake the existance of terminals connected to your computer. If you press ALT+F2 you are taken to the second console, ALT+F3 takes you to the third, and so on. It's basically emulating multiple computers connected to a single machine. Now you don't have to implement it the way *nix does it (where the virtual consoles are terminal emulators and operate with the OS via a fake serial interface), but you get the general idea.

And while TSR's were kind of like multi-tasking, there are not really what the starter of the thread wanted. He, if I understand correctly, wanted to know how to interact with multiple programs at once from a text environment.

Multitasking basicly has nothing to do with GUIs!

Correct. The GUI just presents windows.

A simple way of implementing multiple console screens is to have multiple screen buffers. Switching consoles (such as pressing ALT+F1, ALT+F2, ALT+F3) switches to active screenbuffer (buffer 1, buffer 2, buffer 3 respectivly). Then change your text library to write to the active buffer. If you have an input buffer, have a seperate one for each console also. It is actually quite simple to implement.

When it starts to become more complex is when you want to add multitasking (i.e. running a program on console 1 while running a different program on console 2).. For these, I suggest that you take a look into multitasking. Cooperative multi-tasking (where by pressing ALT+F2 will switch to Program 2 and halt Program 1) will be much easier to implement. Preemptive multi-tasking (where by pressing ALT+F2 will switch the screen buffer to Program 2 without halting Program 1) is more complex to implement in the short term, but has advantages in the long run. To implement preemptive multi-tasking, take a look into using the timer interrupt to switch between consoles, and only drawing the active console's buffer on the screen.