time.sleep() under Windows

[Alex K. Angelopoulos]

"Tim Peters" <tim.one at comcast.net> wrote in message
news:mailman.1042838433.14134.python-list at python.org...
> Jaw-dropping.  It was also enabled on Win9x, but I tested that and it caused
> system (OS) instability there.  We're never going to know why, so the
> ability to interrupt sleep() on Win9x was ripped out again.
>

Just a guess, since I don't know Python well enough to trace back the underlying
API calls, but the underlying system time calls on Win9x go back to an actual
BIOS Get Clock call of some kind - that's one of the reasons that the resolution
of most simple timer functions on Win9x systems are limited to about 55
milliseconds.  I wouldn't be surprised if it is never available to anything else
after the break. NT/2000/XP appear to do something completely different which
emulates the call.