On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 09:31:38 -0400 Anthony Toft wrote: > Tamas hit the nail on the head with his preemptive multitasking model=20 > (which IIRC all 'modern' OS are) I know that Linux will also change > nice levels on CPU hogs so as time passes, they become deprioritized > and affect the rest of the system less. This is true, but keep in mind that no matter how far a task gets deprioritized, if it is runnable it will never get deprioritized below the idle task so your CPU usage will never be less than 100%. All that will happen is preference will be given to other runnable tasks. The only way CPU usage is ever less than 100% is for every single task to go to sleep, whether blocking in read(), blocking in select(), waiting for a timer, or whatever. Chris --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .