OpenGEM: Non-multitasking 16-bit graphical user interface (GUI) for DOS | Hacker News Reader

OpenGEM: Non-multitasking 16-bit graphical user interface (GUI) for DOS

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Related: Lee Lorenzen's (original GEM architect/author) 1982 pitch to Xerox for a downsized version of their Star office/GUI tech to run on PC-class hardware. After they rejected/ignored his pitch, he went to Digital Research to create GEM.

(Then later to found Ventura Publisher, a successful DTP program based around GEM. Which eventually became property of... Xerox)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMBGRZftS30

I remember Ventura Publisher! I used it to typeset school newsletters. The alternative was Aldus PageMaker but that ran on either Mac or Windows 3.1 and I only had a PC XT then, so I ran Ventura on DOS.

It definitely looked like a GEM app. I don't know if it could actually run under GEM or if it used a GEM runtime underneath (it came as a standadalone). But it was my gateway DTP app -- it was quite powerful and full-fledged for a DOS GUI app. I later moved to PageMaker and then QuarkXPress (all of these predated InDesign).

They bundled their own (forked probably) GEM runtime with it. No Desktop or ability to launch other apps.

And I don't know if they ever bothered providing a standalone version that would work with DR's GEM.

Also not sure why they never ported to the Atari ST. Would have been probably quite trivial.

TimeWorks Publisher also ran under GEM. And looked a lot like Ventura. And existed for the Atari ST as well.

AFAIK, runtime GEM works like Runtime Windows did.

If you run it directly from DOS it launches its own version.

If you run the full standalone desktop, and use that to launch the executable, it runs under the desktop.

And I believe it should run on FreeGEM (including the OpenGEM distro) today.

Those early DTP applications all made good use of graphical interfaces, so a few others used GEM, too (e.g. Office Publisher).

It's been a while, but didn't early versions of PageMaker even include Windows (2.0), if you didn't already have it? On IBM PCs, you couldn't really expect anything, so bundling makes sense. I think some mice (Genius and/or Logitech) included simpler DTP applications, too.

Ventura Publisher was pretty great. I think it fared better with multi-column layouts than most other applications, including InDesign until rather recently (spanning headlines).

> It definitely looked like a GEM app. I don't know if it could actually run under GEM

From my own memories, circa ~1986 I got introduced to Ventura Publisher and it definitely ran under GEM; GEM/2 seems to ring a bell. We were also using lower end PC's at the time but it was quite snappy to use. It was the first time I'd ever used a mouse having been a hardcore WordStar (under CP/M and DOS) user for all my word processing needs previously :)

My favorite DOS GUI was PC/GEOS / GeoWorks[1]. It was the GUI behind the interface on the original AOL CDs. It had a nice office suite that ran very well on even low end hardware of the day.

I thought it was far superior to Windows at the time, and never understood why it wasn't more popular. It too has been open-sourced and is actively maintained[2].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(16-bit_operating_syste... [2] https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos

>It had a nice office suite that ran very well on even low end hardware of the day.

Yep, that was called first "newdeal office" and later "breadbox Ensemble", it wasn't shabby at all (but that had not any diffusion/success):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(16-bit_operating_system)...

There are some screenshots on toastytech:

http://toastytech.com/guis/nd32.html

http://toastytech.com/guis/bbe.html

I loved GeoWorks at the time, too. From what I remember, the dev tools were very difficult to use, and apps had to be coded in assembly language, so third-party apps never really took off.

Happy to see this getting mentioned.

It's a distro of FreeGEM:

http://www.deltasoft.com/Default.htm

Lots more info:

http://www.seasip.info/Gem/

I‘m always speechless when I see something like that. People who are supporting such projects over years or even decades, that don’t really bring some value, but are just beautiful to have around.

It’s probably like being an artist. They don’t create useful things, but they create nice things.

This made me smile. Back in 1991 I wrote my masters dissertation in 1st Word Plus runnng in GEM on an old 8086 PC. Being able to see fonts, bold/italic, etc. actually on the screen felt like seeing into the future. Given the limitations of the hardware back then it was pretty remarkable really.

Your remark brought back memories. My wife studied precision engineering as one of few girls (5 out of 700) in vocational college in the late 80s. She wrote all assignments on 1st Word Plus on our Atari ST. And turned them in printed on a dot matrix printer. At a time when everyone else of course was using pen and paper.

Needless to say she got lots of respect. Not only for this reason but that's for another post I guess.

Back in 2003, I decided I should bring in a 486 laptop for note-taking at uni. This was rather exotic at the time, even in a CS program.

I ended up running FreeDOS+GEM, because a Linux setup that took 5 minutes to boot was overkill and full of fun distractions. Also tried OS//2 3.0, but it was a bit poky on a 40MHz DX2 without L2 cache,

OS/2 3 would be, but I ran OS/2 2.0 on several 386SXs and it was usable.

But GEM would be quicker, yes! :-)

This brings back memories, GEM was the first GUI/desktop environment I used, around 1987-88-ish, on an Amstrad PC 1640 (with dual 5.25" disk drives and no hard disk - such luxury...)

If I remember correctly, after booting into MS-DOS on one set of 5.25" disks, you then had to swap the disks and launch GEM.

FreeDOS shouldn't provide SEAL and such. If any, they should build and pack the full GEM software bundle.

It's in there, but an optional install.

I'm discussing taking over maintaining the FreeDOS version, FWIW.

I poked around, but didn't see any application software for OpenGEM/FreeGEM. Is there any or are the people that use it just using it as a graphical shell and file manager? Ports of Atari ST software maybe?

Unfortunately, most of the websites about GEM are offline now. These are good starting points:

http://www.seasip.info/Gem/

https://www.owenrudge.net/GEM/

http://www.retroarchive.org/cpm/archive/unofficial/gemworld....

https://web.archive.org/web/20030417043919/http://www.geocit... (there's a web browser for GEM there!)

What kind of applications are you looking for?

I have written applications and desk accessories for original GEM, also did language bindings to it for Lisp.

Well, I wasn't really looking for any but I was wondering what anyone was doing with it now. (It appears, basically getting it up and running to take a look). There are still people developing for the ST, aren't there?

This just appears to be a mirror of the Wikipedia article on OpenGEM

Don't you think that the UI is not very good? First, there is no *quickly* accessible home screen with icons like in Android or iOS. Second, there is no quick search so that you can start any app by typing 3-4 letters like in Gnome. Instead, the UI makes you make lot of unnecessary gestures to perform a task. If you want to copy, copy the latest ideas and not make a clone of Windows 3.1.

Also, windows do not make much sense on a small low-resolution display. Windows are made for people with huge expensive high-resolution monitors; for DOS era screens you should use either full-screen or half-screen windows.

Windows ran on 640x480 resolutions just fine.

Mac OS 7 the same with 512x384.

Has the colors been chosen by a colorblind person?

https://moddingwiki.shikadi.net/wiki/EGA_Palette

You think this is bad, check out the default Windows 1.0 colour scheme!

Here's some screenshots to whet your appetite:

http://toastytech.com/guis/win1x2x.html

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