2 replies to this topic

[BillW50]

I got curious about whatever happened to GEOS (aka Berkeley Softworks). And I found out it later ended up with CMD and later still with Click Here Software. You can download the boot disks from the following:

http://cbmfiles.com/geos/geos-13.php

And at the time, it was the second most popular GUI OS just behind the Mac. Not something you hear a lot and I bet most people never even heard of GEOS. And today you can run GEOS under almost any OS with an emulator called VICE.

http://www.viceteam.org/

And you can download the GEOS v2 manual here:

http://www.lyonlabs....quest/geos.html

And for me it has been very nostalgic running GEOS 128 once again. And I forgot that there was no scroll bars. Yet it was still very functional. As all you did was to move the mouse at the bottom of the screen to scroll down, or the top to scroll up. And the trash could only hold one file. So you could only undo the last one. And it had that nice uncluttered look to it. Awww... what a nice time to be using computers back then. Too bad it isn't very functional anymore by today's standards. But still fun to play with after all of these years.

[fewt]

OOOOHH Graphic Environment Operating System AKA G.E.O.S.! On the flip side is Q-Link. :) That was my first "GUI", wow this brings back some memories.

I was a Geoworks Ensemble (PC) fan too.

[BillW50]

Yup and don't ask me why I did it, but back then I bought everything that Berkeley Softworks released for both GEOS 64 and 128. And I added it up and they cost over one thousand bucks for it all. And the dang copy protection drove me nuts! And mailing in my boot disk with 20 bucks I think it was just to get a replacement. As a floppy disk could be booted about 350 times before you would wear them out.

Q-Link? Yes I was a big timer user there as well as GEnie, CompuServe, Prodigy, Fidonet, etc. Back in November of 1986, Q-Link users were offered a Lifetime account for $169. They only made this offer once and I grabbed it. All it did was to wave the $9.95 monthly fee. And you only got one free hour per month. Anything more you had to pay by the minute. Later in 1994, Q-Link Lifetime accounts were transferred to AOL. Although you had to tell them or your Lifetime account would disappear. And today this account is worth 5 hours per month free.

GEOS Ensemble (aka PC-GEOS)? Yes I have gone there too. But not as heavy as I did with GEOS 64/128. As I got burned spending too much money on GEOS 64/128 and they just abandoned us anyway. GEOS Ensemble is downloadable for free too if you are interested. And GEOS Ensemble was beating Windows 3.0 IMHO. And then things changed when Windows 3.1 came out. As GEOS Ensemble stopped competing and stayed at 16 bit.

Breadbox now owns PC-GEOS and the free version is now called Ensemble Lite:

http://www.breadbox....Ensemble%20Lite

Before Breadbox, NewDeal had GEOS Ensemble and did release it for free later. I guess you have to find a copy somewhere if you want that one.