GEOS Available for Download After 18 Years

gp writes "Back in 1986, Berkeley Softworks presented GEOS, the Graphical Environment Operating System for the Commodore 64 (screenshots). GEOS effectively turned the 8-bit Commodore 64 into something very similar to a Macintosh, but for an 8th of the price. In 2004, pushed hard by rivaling C64 open source alternatives such as the Contiki operating system and desktop environment and the LUnix *nix clone, the owners of GEOS have finally decided to release GEOS to the public. Hordes of Commodore 64 users are expected to download the system." Sadly, there's no mention of GEOS for the Apple 2 series of computers, which also enjoyed this fine precursor of GUIs to come.

Comments

GEOS Nostalgia

[spun]

I had a Commodore 64 as a kid. I remember when GEOS came out, I was so impressed. The Mac Plus gave me computer envy, but here was a windowing system I could put on my $200 computer! It was small and fast, and it came with a basic set of tools. It was also fairly easy to learn the programming interface.

Later, in the mid 90s, I met a guy who had it installed on an Intel box. I had no idea at the time that they made a 386 version. It did everything he needed, mostly writing. This was a guy who administered SCO Unix boxes for an ISP, and he used GEOS at home.

GEOS is still around.

[Slack3r78]

Believe it or not, the GEOS codebase is still alive and kicking. I haven't gotten around to trying it personally, but it's supposedly updated for modern hardware and is capable of browsing the web. Breadbox, the company that apparently owns the code now is marketing it as a low-cost alternative to Windows for schools that could be run on older hardware. Interesting in the least.

interesting stuff

[highwaytohell]

This looks like it could have actually gone pretty far had it had a chance. As a cheap alternative to an apple it looks like it had some good functionality. Does anyone know what the reliability of this OS was like. It says that it provided some decent support for 286/386. Its a shame that this wasnt given the support that it deserved. WHo knows what it could have been capable of. I suppose most people rejhected it as the C64 was mainly for gaming, at least when i was a kid it was. If i had known it was around, and i had more interest in OS', this probably would have ended up in my living room. Its been a while, but its still good to see what some of the pioneers were capable of.

Same company, different codebase...

[William Tanksley]

Berkley Softworks developed C64-Geos, which was also ported to the Apple and such, and then all through the 80s worked on their next accomplishment: Geos for the PC.

When released, it was the first commercial object oriented OS for the PC (NeXTStep was earlier, but Geos beat it to the PC).

And honestly, it kicked BUTT, because not only was it fast and elegant, it had a KILLER application suite and awesome dot matrix printer driver. Near laser quality from a mere 24-pin and my old '286... And it ran as a DOS application, too, with special drivers to make it cooperate with DR-DOS' task switcher.

I miss it now.

-Billy

You say that, but...

[Half-pint HAL]

There was an individual who, during the mid-to-late nineties, wrote a package to run software from the original C64 GEOS on IBM PCs. He never released it as CMD didn't want him to (they probably couldn't have stopped him, but he chose not to release it anyway). With this free download release, that package may now reappear and become a bizarre yet effective way to put a tried-and-tested, low-cost office environment onto a low-powered handheld PC. (Highly suitable for low-resolution/low-colour screens!) As the file formats are completely stable (there will be no ongoing development), handheld/PC synchronisation would be pretty future-proof, and if native GEOWrite file format support was to be added to StarOffice, we'd have a neatly integrated setup.... HAL.