Slashdot Mirror

PC-GEOS didn't share anything in common with Commodore GEOS 64 / 128 or Apple GEOS except the name GEOS and the fact some of the same engineers worked on all of them. I did some work on Apple GEOS applications, and was part of the team that wrote PC-GEOS and its applications.

Microsoft hadn't yet dominated the desktop market when PC-GEOS came out. But pressure from Microsoft on OEMs (e.g., if you're going to bundle DOS, you have to pay for Windows even if you're not going to include it), plus bad marketing by Geoworks, and lack of an SDK in time doomed it for that market.

PC-GEOS was written from scratch. It used a generic UI, which was built out into a specific UI at runtime. Generic objects could build out into a single specific object (e.g., a button), an entire menu tree (e.g., all of the common File, Edit, View menus), or anything in between. This was the basis of one of Geoworks' patents. It made it very easy to get the basic functionality of an application up and running quickly. It also had an amazingly powerful text object, that was basically a word processor.

Because the generic to specific buildout happened at run time, these could be a lot more than superficial 'skins'. Unless you were designing for a handheld or other small device, no changes were required in the applications themselves to run under any of the UIs.

The first released UI was based on the Motif look-and-feel, but didn't use any Motif API. The original specific UI was based on OpenLook, but for a variety of reasons that wasn't used. There was also a CUA UI (think OS/2, much like Windows 3.0), a variety of OEM-specific UIs, a Deskmate UI for demo to Tandy Corp., and even a Macintosh UI for demo to Apple and Claris. NewDeal later added a "industry standard UI" (Win95 look-and-feel), and Breadbox a similar ISUI (Wind2000 look-and-feel).

Geoworks is now a corporate shell based in Texas. NewDeal is completely defunct. Breadbox currently owns the rights to PC-GEOS, and is alive and well. GEOS freeware, shareware, etc. live on at Tva Katter. (I maintain the TK site. There should be a ring over the 'a' in tva, but /. keeps eating it. The name is Swedish for 'two cats')

A demo version of GEOS, aka PC-GEOS, is available here. The original version was created by the same people who made Commodore GEOS over at (the soon to be defunct) Geoworks. My co-op project back in '89 was done on GeoProgrammer, as part of in-house testing for that environment.

Of course, it also contains some scary code like the self-modifying code in the video drivers, and the specific UI code wasn't the prettiest, either...

Mostly correct.

GEOS pre-dated Windows by years. In fact, GEOS predated the Macintosh. It started on the Commodore 64.

Commodore GEOS pre-dated Windows. I'm not sure if it predated the Macintosh or not. However, the PC-based version didn't come out until 1990. The Commodore 64 version was pretty cool, though -- a graphical OS and app (one at a time) in 64 K .

The entire word processor was only a few hundred kb

The current version is 114K. It hasn't been updated significantly in a while, and so is lacking indexing and some other key features, but it's a pretty amazing little app.

Development was done in "Graphical Object C".

The OS itself was in 80x86 assembly, as were the initial apps (WP, drawing, spreadsheet). Later libraries and some apps were done in GEOS Object C.

It started on the Commodore 64, from Berkeley Software (the After Dark folks)

After Dark was from Berkeley Systems.

GEOS (Commodore and otherwise) was from Berkeley Softworks. The company was later renamed GeoWorks, then Geoworks.

Today, GeoWorks exists by owning a lot of patents on various obtuse concepts and pretending to have a case to file suit.

AFAIK, Geoworks only has one patent, the flexible UI. It's not particularly obtuse; it's a fairly cool concept (the reactions from people seeing a demo with apps running under Motif, OpenLook and a CUA interface all on the same screen was pretty funny). What's potentially obtuse is enforcing the patent against WAP. But IANAL, so I don't know if it's a stretch or not. Hmm...strike that. They got a second patent that looks a little more WAP/HTML specific.

Anybody remember GEOS? That's another OS that was written entirely in assembly... by the time they finished, Windows had ALL of the marketshare...

Yep, I was one of the developers (fonts, help system, spreadsheet, DBCS version). GEOS is a pre-emptive multi-tasking, multi-threaded OS with a GUI, single imaging model, object-oriented (object-oriented assembly? MooOOoo!), and lots of other wizzy features. It originally ran on a 4.77 MHz, 640K IBM XT, and still uses less than 16MB of disk space (your video card probably has that much RAM now :-)

The OS and apps were done in a reasonable amount of time, but the big problems were:

1. the SDK wasn't available for too long
2. the SDK initially only ran on SPARCstations
3. Microsoft had a OEMs locked into using Windows if they wanted to use DOS. DR-DOS was an option at one point, but OEMs were scared off from it by the incompatabilites MS added

GEOS still lives on. Several companies worked with it until recently, NewDeal and MyTurn.com; both are, alas, now defunct. Nokia used GEOS for the 9000/9110 Communicator which is still alive and kicking. The OS still belongs to Geoworks where it was created, but lots of software is available at Två Katter.

• engineering co-ops
• newer programmers
• changes to core code
• bug fixes done near deadlines

Those of us who're old enough may remember GEOS on the C-64, C-128 and Apple II from Berkeley Softworks, back in the '80s. BSW became GeoWorks around 1990, and sold the OS and app suites based on it for a few years, as well as selling it for PDA's like the Tandy/Casio/Sharp "Zoomer" and some HP OmniGo models.

Around the mid-'90s, GeoWorks focused more on smart phones (the Nokia 9000 family of smart phones run GEOS), and desktop stuff was taken over by New Deal, Inc..

On the x86 platform, GEOS offered pre-emptive multitasking, multithreading, and object-oriented design (coded in something resembling Objective C, if I recall from the days when I had the SDK and developer docs, and in assembler) - and it did this a full five years ahead of Windows 95. In 1990, it had shared UI code for all apps, like GNOME and KDE are now doing.

It was also very fast as a platform - it was originally designed to run on an 8086 with 640K, and even the most recent versions are quite happy on a '286 with a meg or two. On anything "recent" in the way of a CPU, it should outperform just about anything - unless, of course, it's loading stuff over a dialup...

--

In the early 1990's, Geoworks invented a unique process for designing generic user interfaces for application programs, enabling the same application to run on a broad range of platforms. User interface technology provides the screen environment in many electronic devices such as mobile phones and PDA's. Today you see this technology in the market in such devices as the Nokia Communicator family of smart phones. The Geoworks process was described and patented in U.S. Patent No. 5,327,529, which issued on July 5, 1994. The patent provides Geoworks with rights and legal protection in the United States and Japan through July 5, 2011. A portion of the technology described in the Geoworks patent, which is referred to as the "Flex UI Patent," has been realized in the implementation of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and the corresponding Wireless Markup Language (WML). The Wireless Application Protocol is the de facto worldwide standard for the presentation and delivery of wireless information and telephony services on mobile phones and other wireless terminals. In May of 1999, in accordance with the charter documents governing WAP Forum members, Geoworks was the first member to notify the WAP Forum that its patented technology rights represented "Essential Intellectual Property Rights" (Essential IPR) realized in the implementation of the WAP Specification. Accordingly, the WAP Forum published the Geoworks declaration of Essential IPR for worldwide circulation in the member's section of its website at www.wapforum.com. Other member companies have similarly notified the WAP Forum of their Essential IPR. The commercial implications of a WAP Forum member company declaring Essential IPR were anticipated during the formation of the WAP Forum and resulted in a recommended protocol whereby the declaring member company would license its technology to other members on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory commercial terms.

In the early 1990's, Geoworks invented a unique process for designing generic user interfaces for application programs, enabling the same application to run on a broad range of platforms. User interface technology provides the screen environment in many electronic devices such as mobile phones and PDA's. Today you see this technology in the market in such devices as the Nokia Communicator family of smart phones. The Geoworks process was described and patented in U.S. Patent No. 5,327,529, which issued on July 5, 1994. The patent provides Geoworks with rights and legal protection in the United States and Japan through July 5, 2011. A portion of the technology described in the Geoworks patent, which is referred to as the "Flex UI Patent," has been realized in the implementation of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and the corresponding Wireless Markup Language (WML). The Wireless Application Protocol is the de facto worldwide standard for the presentation and delivery of wireless information and telephony services on mobile phones and other wireless terminals. In May of 1999, in accordance with the charter documents governing WAP Forum members, Geoworks was the first member to notify the WAP Forum that its patented technology rights represented "Essential Intellectual Property Rights" (Essential IPR) realized in the implementation of the WAP Specification. Accordingly, the WAP Forum published the Geoworks declaration of Essential IPR for worldwide circulation in the member's section of its website at www.wapforum.com. Other member companies have similarly notified the WAP Forum of their Essential IPR. The commercial implications of a WAP Forum member company declaring Essential IPR were anticipated during the formation of the WAP Forum and resulted in a recommended protocol whereby the declaring member company would license its technology to other members on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory commercial terms.

GEOS is still around thankyouverymuch as GEOWORKS. When it moved on to Intel machines it became (on 286 and above (?) anyway) a multitasking O/S with scaled fonts. It still shows up on the occasional desktop but mostly in handheld devices like the late Casio Zoomer (sort of a proto-Pilot), cell phones and the like.

If you read their actual Wireless Internet White Paper, they are intimating that any company that creates a WAP based site and has an income of over 1,000,000 USD will have to pay the licensing fee.

They are also extremely unclear as to how companies with lower turnovers will be affected - there is certainly no guarantee in their papers that there will be no license fee for general use by non-profits or low-profits.

Think it's not important? Where would the web be now if 5 years ago all the companies who wanted to start putting up sites had to pony up 20 G's first?

It may not hurt the MS's and RedHats of this world, but it's sure as hell going to hurt the development and uptake of WAP as a standard if the MSE's (Medium Sized Enterprises) can't get onto the playing field.


Steve Cook
WapWarp

Read their statement.

Note that many other GUIs apply.

- Tom

GEOS is not dead, it simply moved into the embedded market.