Weird Thread problem - Not getting processing time from system?

Question

I have an applet that displays an animation, and tasks are divided up into separate threads. After the main display is created, I create a thread that repaints the display every 10 milliseconds and one that does the actual animation. The odd thing is, even though it is in an infinite for loop, the message (see below) only comes up once (saying "Refresh 0"), and the applet doesn't refresh unless I minimize and maximize the window. Below is a modified code snippet:
...imports...
public class AnimationApplet extends Applet
AnimationApplet a;
public void init(){
a = this;
createDisplay() //gets the container and adds a Jpanel with main animation, a button and a textfield.
new AnimateThread().start()//calls animate() method which uses a timer to daw a series of lines
new RefreshThread().start();}
private class RefreshThread extends Thread{
public void run()
int count = 0;
for(;;){
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Refresh " + count);
tp.repaint() //refresh main panel
a.validate()
count++;
sleep(10);}
}If you need to see more code, I can provide it. Thanks in advance for the help!

Answer 1

Nothing I'm trying is working. Someone please help!