Build A
Portable Multitasking Environment
in ``C''

                                -O  
                             O      O
                               O-     
                           O    _    |  
                           |   / \   O
                              <^_^>     
                           X   \_/   X
                            \   U   /
                             \-----/    
                                U
                                U
                                ^
                              /   \
                            _/ the \_
                             mailbox
                           multitasker

• Contents
• Goals of this Article
• The Dimensions of Concurrent Processing
  • Why Process Concurrently?
  • Tasks, Processors, and Context Switching
  • Internal & External Synchronization
  • Protocols of Communication
  • Resource Management
  
  
• The Mailbox Multitasker
  • Mailbox vs. The Typical Multitasker
  • Mailbox's Layers of Portability
  • MPTHD: The Context Switching Layer
  • MPTSK: The Task Organization Layer
  • MPRES: The Resource Management Layer
    • Contention Management
    • Pre-emptive Multitasking
    • Other Interrupt-Based Optimizations
  
  
• Thinking Concurrently