Threads - JavaTech: An Introduction to Scientific and Technical Computing with Java - page 256

8.2.2 Thread creation: Runnable
In the second threading technique a class implements the Runnable interface
and overrides its run() method. This approach is often convenient, especially
for cases where you want to create a single instance of a thread, as in an animation
for an applet. You pass a reference to the Runnable object via the constructor
of Thread and when it starts, the thread calls back to the run() method. As
before, the thread process dies after exiting run() .
The following code segment illustrates this approach. Here MyRunnableAp-
plet implements the Runnable interface. The start() method creates an
instance of the Thread class and passes a reference to itself (with the “this „
reference) in the thread's constructor. When it invokes the start() method for
the thread, the thread will invoke the run() method in MyRunnableApplet .
/** Demo threading with Runnable implementation. **/
public class MyRunnableApplet extends java.applet.Applet
implements Runnable
{
/** Applet's start method creates a thread. **/
public void start () {
// Create an instance of Thread with a
// reference to this Runnable instance.
Thread thread = new Thread (this);
// Start the thread
thread.start ();
} // start
/** Override the Runnable run() method. **/
public void run () {
int count = 0;
while (true) {
System.out.println ( " Thread alive " );
// Print every 0.10sec for 5 seconds
try {
Thread.sleep(100);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {}
count++;
if (count >= 50) break;
}
System.out.println ("Thread stopping");
} // run
public void paint (java.awt.Graphics g) {