pacman000 Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 http://www.osnews.com/story/15223/GEOS_The_Graphical_Environment_Operating_System/page1/ Fairly good write up on GEOS; its history, and eventual demise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zonie Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 I had it. took forever to load (what didn't with a 1541) it was cool but there wasn't enough resources left to really do anything. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 Here's some more info on it, including reverse engineering source: https://www.pagetable.com/?s=geos 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 I had it. took forever to load (what didn't with a 1541) it was cool but there wasn't enough resources left to really do anything. That was always my impression of it, from way back then. I also had to use it with a joystick, which felt sort of weird. I was really taken aback to learn much later on that it was actually "a thing" that people used, later on when memory expansion, mice, and hard-disk drives came en vogue. -dZ. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 I used GEOS v2.0 on my Commodore 64 with 1541 for a long time before moving to GEOS 128 v2.0. The 64 version is slow but usable with the built-in applications like geoWrite and geoPaint. There are a number of programs released for the 64 which work on the 128 but not very well. In any case, it got me through school handily up to college level when I switched to WordPerfect on the Amiga. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 Thought GEOS was incredibly ambitious, but didn't really see the point for such a machine. Especially an unexpanded one. At the time, kind of just saw it as a fancy program that ran other programs. Played around with it here and there (was nice to show off to friends), but never had a real need or use for it. Wasn't into painting or drawing, let alone doing those things with a joystick. And couldn't even use its word processor to turn papers in as our high school didn't accept output from 9-pin dot matrix printers. Bought an Amiga 1000 soon after and forgot all about GEOS, until it came bundled with a C64c I bought some time later. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zonie Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 our high school didn't accept output from 9-pin dot matrix printers. That's pathetic and unproductive. Some school administrations, jeez. I used "Easy Script" through college in the late 80's. Had to master the "two lines on the screen is one on the page" with the 40 column display. You couldn't read 80 on a TV with the conversion. I remember we had our chem lab quizes on the vax mainframe. We had to go the terminal room and use printer terminals to do the assignments. I was turning in my Chem lab assignments on plain paper, dot matrix. Instructor asked how did i do this so I told him I asked the Sysop if there was a dialup and he gave it to me. Did it all at home on a CRT instead of wasting 20" wide green and white striped paper. Teacher didn't allow it, so I still did it at home and just saved my work and printed it in the lab. Dumbass never knew. It's not like I could cheat, they were open book! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 And couldn't even use its word processor to turn papers in as our high school didn't accept output from 9-pin dot matrix printers. What kind of backward-ass school did you attend?! That is a partly rhetorical and partly serious question. My elementary school in the 80s was very happy if we used computers. I was one of the first kids in my school to turn in papers done on computer -- not the first, but one of as many of my friends had printers before I did. (To expand: there was a requirement that we be able to write well before typing. About third grade if you could show you could write by hand you could use computers, then fourth grade it was the assumption.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertB Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 I too was not a fan of GEOS because of its buggy nature. However, when Wheels came out, a lot of the bugs were cured. With the required RAM expander for Wheels (and later on, a RAMLink and a SuperCPU), Wheels and the GEOS apps fairly flew. Truly, Robert Bernardo Fresno Commodore User Group - www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - www.portcommodore.com/sccan June 9-19 Pacific Commodore Expo NW 2018 - www.portcommodore.com/pacommex Aug. 11-12 Commodore Vegas Expo v14 2018 - www.portcommodore.com/commvex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 (edited) I too was not a fan of GEOS because of its buggy nature. However, when Wheels came out, a lot of the bugs were cured. With the required RAM expander for Wheels (and later on, a RAMLink and a SuperCPU), Wheels and the GEOS apps fairly flew. Yeah, but that's just the thing: when GEOS came out in 1986, it felt like just a "toy" for the stock C=64. A truly impressive toy (especially for those of us who had the chance to actually use a Macintosh when that came out), but not a serious environment to do work or use regularly. At least that's the impression I had back then, as a teen. -dZ. Edited March 20, 2018 by DZ-Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 If I understand correctly, Maurice Randall's Wheels wasn't released until 1998 so while it probably is useful for anyone still using a C64 or rather C128, commercially it never competed in its hayday. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 Yeah, but that's just the thing: when GEOS came out in 1986, it felt like just a "toy" for the stock C=64. A truly impressive toy (especially for those of us who had the chance to actually use a Macintosh when that came out), but not a serious environment to do work or use regularly. Unless you were still using a 128k Mac Of course, that felt like a toy to the 512k Amiga Which reminds me, oh the religious wars of the 80s! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 What kind of backward-ass school did you attend?! It's not that they were anti-technology (we had large labs full of Model III's, PCJR's, 5150's, IIe's, etc.), but it was all about the 'Near Letter Quality' that they were hung up on. And seriously, most everything back then was done by cursive anyway - so it wasn't *that* huge of a deal. The few times I actually wanted to type a paper, I used an ancient manual push button typewriter we had, that I swear was from around the turn of the century. Looked just like this one! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 Unless you were still using a 128k Mac Of course, that felt like a toy to the 512k Amiga Which reminds me, oh the religious wars of the 80s! I used the 128K Macintosh owned by a friend's father. He bought it very early when they came out. Contrary to what you read on the Internet, it was useful in spite of its limitations, and very fun to use. My friend's father, for example, used it to write documents in MacWrite and make illustrations for them in MacPaint. He was an executive at Xerox, and he talked very positively about the machine. Us kids, we just drew comics and made cheesy newsletters, and played some games. It felt like the future, and it was loads of fun to use. The mouse, specifically, was a revelation. GEOS, on the other hand, felt slow and cumbersome to use (pointing with a Joystick, really??) on our stock C=64 -- which was de rigueur at the time of release. My friend bought it right when it came out in 1986 and we both felt it wasn't as fun to use as the Mac we've been playing with for 2 years now. We played with it for a bit then shelved it. It was indeed impressive that we could use a "Mac-like" UI on a Commodore 64, but it just couldn't perform on our machines. Disk swapping in a 1541 is described in gory detail by Dante in the 7th circle of hell. As impressive as the Amiga was (and indeed it was lots better than the Macintosh in many regards), it just wasn't there to compare back in 1984 -- but the Mac 128K was, for better or worse. GEOS is brilliant and impressive technically. My original point was that I was surprised to learn how popular it became later on, after I left the scene, because my impressions were formed when it first came out, and used on a stock machine. Your mileage may vary, of course. dZ. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 I had it. took forever to load (what didn't with a 1541) it was cool but there wasn't enough resources left to really do anything. I don't necessarily agree, at least when it comes to school work. I was able to produce some nice written papers, including some with graphics, on my stock C-64c with 1541 disk drive and horrible MPS-803 printer. I also did some nice artwork. However, I never did try any of the other productivity apps beyond that that I can recall, so perhaps those were more limited. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 I used Text 64 for word processing and OCP (Advanced) Art Studio for graphics with my MPS-801 for as long as I kept it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 I used Text 64 for word processing and OCP (Advanced) Art Studio for graphics with my MPS-801 for as long as I kept it. I used Doodle! primarily for art on the C-64, but I did do some nice, more technical creations with the drawing program in GEOS. The nice thing about the word processor in GEOS is that not only was it WYSIWIG, but it also printed text as graphics, so the output was far better than using the MPS-803's regular text mode. If you combined that with the carbon paper trick, it could look like low resolution laser printer output. Not too shabby for the time. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motrucker Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 The 128, 80 column version of GEOS was quite usable. With the 128 2.0 GEOS, you could even use a laser printer to get rid of those awful looking dot matrix print outs. My only gripe was that they never released an 80 column version of GeoPublish. The C-128, with a 1750 (at least) REU and a laser printer could create great looking output. The bigger the REU you had was key. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurtisP Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 GEOS was really only usable with two floppy drives and a mouse, but once you had those, it was quite nice. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gar0u Posted May 11, 2018 Share Posted May 11, 2018 If I recall, I used GEOS with a 1541, a 1581, and the 1764 RAM expander. I tried a lot of different word processors FOR FUN when I was a kid. IIRC, I settled on Easy Script and a LQ printer; because like one of the other posters, my middle school did not accept dot-matrix printed papers (due to the lack of true descenders). I was a fan of GEOS, and I remember it working pretty well; or I had way more free time when I was a kid and didn't mind waiting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerG Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 I have a stock C128. Is there a way to use GEOS without a disk drive? Does the SD2IEC or Easy Flash 3 or 1541 Ultimate + work with it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 The 1541 Ultimate should most certainly work with GEOS. I seem to recall people using GEOS with the SD2IEC too, though there was discussion about custom file formats before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerG Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 Good and I see where GEOS has been converted to D81 images, these should work with the SD2iec. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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