GeoWorks -- Commodore/Apple/PC? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

11 Apr 1999

GEOS wasn't multitasking?  I have it on my Tandy Zoomer (with AOL), and can
switch back and forth between two programs, and they seem to be where they
were left before (They can't be minimized, like Windows, but they don't seem
to close).
--
         -Jason Willgruber
       (roblwill(a)usaor.net)
           ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1...

-----Original Message-----
From: Cameron Kaiser &lt;ckaiser(a)oa.ptloma.edu...

To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
&lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu...
  Date: Saturday, April
10, 1999 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: GeoWorks -- Commodore/Apple/PC?

...
 ::I Used to have a Commodore 128 that had GeoWorks on
it (I think it was
::actually GEOS, or something like that).  I also have a box and font/graphics
...
 ::set for the PC version or GeoWorks.  I've also
heard that there was a
::version of it for the Apple // series.

PC GeoWorks != Commodore/Apple GEOS. Totally different architectures. The
8-bit GEOS was a single-tasking GUI API; the PC version is actually an entire
...
 true preemptively multitasking OS. AOL, before the
Windows client emerged,
in fact was based on a PC-GEOS runtime.

Apple GEOS was an unmitigated flop, especially because Apple was heavily
pushing Quark Catalyst. A shame, because Berkeley Softworks (now GeoWorks)
was trying to add application cross-compatibility between Commodore and Apple
...
 GEOS where possible.

Commodore GEOS, on the other hand, was and is a big hit. It's still sold
and manufactured, and now people have issued homegrown patches for it that
allow it to take advantage of RAM expansion up to 16MB, hard drive real
estate and the SuperCPU accelerators, and even do context-switching. Avoid
versions before 1.5, however, and even then C= GEOS didn't come into its own
...
 until v2.0.

--
-------------------------- personal page: 
http://calvin.ptloma.edu/~spectre/ --
...
 Cameron Kaiser                     Database
Programmer/Administrative Computing
...
 Point Loma Nazarene University                         
   Fax: +1 619 849 2581
...
 ckaiser(a)ptloma.edu                                     
 Phone: +1 619 849 2539
...
 -- A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
-- O. Henry -----------
...