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DesqView/X: Night of the Living Dead Codebases

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the dreams-of-shells-past dept.

Pazuzues writes "I found something that you could say peaked my interest. It seems Symantec (purchasers of former company Quarterdeck) has release DeskView/X into public domain and can be downloaded now. DesqView/X was a GUI and OS extender that installed into DOS very much like MS Windows does. This little GUI can run X-Windows and MS Windows 3.x software and can even gateway serve MS Windows applications to remote X terminals. It was way ahead of its time and is a pretty decent toy to play with if you have a old 486 laying around. Anyways there is a petition being started that is petitioning Symantec to release the source code as OpenSource. I think this is a really good idea and could possiably help alot of other existing projects like WINE for example. It can load X and rexec X apps with 16mb RAM for Pete sakes!"

3 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. Re:DesqView was really cool. by garcia · · Score: 3, Funny

    I used to use it on a 386SX-16 for running a BBS. The footprint was a lot less than Win3.11 and it ran reasonably well on that machine w/5mb of RAM.

    At the time the /X meant nothing to me. It just looked cool when the user would login and see the OS listed as Desqview/X ;)

  2. Pazuzues should have written... by 1010011010 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Pazuzues should have written "I found something that you could say piqued my interest. It seems that Symantec (which purchased now-defunct Quarterdeck years ago) has released into the public domain binary versions of DesqView/X. DesqView/X was a GUI and DOS extender that installed over DOS very much like MS Windows did. This little GUI can run X-Windows and MS Windows 3.x software and can even act as gateway to serve MS Windows applications to remote X terminals. It was way ahead of its time and is still a pretty decent toy to play with. It can load X and rexec X apps with 16MB of RAM, for Pete's sake! All it needs is an old 486. A petition has been started to urge Symantec to release the source code under an Open Source license. I think this is a really good idea, as it could possibly help a number of projects, such as WINE. DesqView/X is available for download now."

    How much "editing" does being an "editor" involve, anyway? 8^D

    --
    Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
  3. Re: Desqview by jelle · · Score: 3, Funny

    What a foresight they must have had when they thought of the name, eh?

    --
    --- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.