On a Solution to the Cigarette Smoker's Problem (Without Conditional Statements) This report discusses a problem first introduced by Patil, who has claimed that the cigarette smoker's problem cannot be solved using the P and V operations introduced by Dijkstra unless conditional statements are used. An examination of Patil's proof shows that he has established this claim only under strong restrictions on the use of P and V. These restrictions eliminate programming techniques used by Dijkstra and others since the first introduction of the semaphore concept. This paper contains a solution to the problem. It also discusses the need for the generalized operators suggested by Patil. CACM March, 1975 Parnas, D. L. operating systems, co-operating processes,process synchronization primitives 4.3 CA750311 JB January 9, 1978 4:24 PM 2320 4 2777 2597 4 2777 2777 4 2777 2851 4 2777 2895 4 2777 2912 4 2777 2946 4 2777 3128 4 2777 2150 5 2777 2738 5 2777 2777 5 2777 2777 5 2777 2777 5 2777 1749 6 2777 2080 6 2777 2247 6 2777 2356 6 2777 2777 6 2777