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I'm really happy to see this. I wrote a story about PC/GEOS, also known as GeoWorks, a few years ago, and the end of the story was somewhat sad, as the death of

I'm really happy to see this. I wrote a story about PC/GEOS, also known as GeoWorks, a few years ago, and the end of the story was somewhat sad, as the death of one of the founders of BreadBox effectively left the future of the operating system in flux. https://tedium.co/2016/04/28/geoworks-windows-3-1-competitor/ https://tedium.co/2016/04/28/geoworks-windows-3-1-competitor... Hopefully open-sourcing it will keep this great operating system alive. It should have beat Windows 3.1.

azinman2 8y ago
What makes it great in 2018? Why keep alive?
- fit2rule 8y ago
  It could function as a great alternative to Windows or FreeDOS for those of us who don't want to pay a Microsoft tax whenever we buy a new computer. It might be useful as the basis of a new mobile-phone operating system. It is certainly interesting to the archaic-computer users out there who are maintaining old systems as a means of consolidating computing culture, as we lean more and more towards homogenisation ...
  - azinman2 8y ago
    What makes an 80s/90s era 16-bit OS great in 2018? If you want free/open source, why not run Linux or FreeBSD or any if the many modern alternatives that have 64-bit support, preemptive multitasking, protected memory, modern VM, new software actively being developed for it, drivers for modern hardware, support for SSDs and USB 3.0 and nvidias, etc etc? Similarly, there’s nothing about geos that’s appropriate for a mobile device. If you want to start with something existing, Android is already open source and has a ton of existing software. Or try fuschia if you want more bleeding edge. Now if you say it’s for a hobby, or fun, or whatever then I can understand.
    - toast0 8y ago
      It seems like this OS has an interesting concept of beginner / intermediate / advanced user levels. That's not really something that's in today's systems. Looking back on earlier systems from time to time is a good way to see what we used to have, but don't anymore, and question if it's useful. Especially looking at alternates from the past that may have been overlooked in the past. The allure of using an old operating system as the basis for new work is that it would at least seem to be much simpler than a modern operating system; and it's a good thing to avoid unnecessary complexity. Of course, it may turn out that in order to work on a modern computer, you need most of the complexity. Something that's reported to work well on a 386 should be likely to feel responsive and fluid on any modern computer.
      - tomc1985 8y ago
        Yeah, modern design would say that's too much choice, so design for permanent "beginner" mode
    - shortformblog 8y ago
      I think operating systems with historic value deserve protection and the decision to keep it in development ensures its value from an archival standpoint. The fact that this source code is out there keeps it alive. It's not as simple as comparing it to the paradigm used by other operating platforms.
    - david-given 8y ago
      GEOS would run on systems three orders of magnitude smaller than the ones you describe. It was intended to work well on machines with a single megabyte of RAM, and did. I have an Android ADP1 phone on my desk at work; the first Android phone which was ever released (the G1 with the custom paint job on the back). It's a paperweight; there's nothing useful I can do with it, and it won't even talk to the Google servers any more. However, obsolete as it is, it's still staggeringly more powerful than anything GEOS ever ran on. The biggest thing systems like GEOS do for the modern developer is to be an example: to demonstrate just what you can do with a tiny, tiny amount of code. (Oh yeah, GEOS also had virtual memory and preemptive multitasking.)
  - hakfoo 8y ago
    In college (2003), I took a 486-40 laptop for note-taking. It ran either a DOS+GEM setup or OS/2 3.0. This offered a no-distractions (no games, no wi-fi) experience and ran well on the available hardware. Honestly, PC/GEOS would have been even better suited to task. Less resource intensive, but still with decent WYSIWYG tools. I may have to put together a bootable device with FreeDOS and GEOS this weekend.
- pmarin 8y ago
  Weird question for a "Hacker" News forum.
- cmrdporcupine 8y ago
  The same reason that drives all interest in computing that isn't strictly for $work: because we can, and because we might find it fun.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    The GP may just be wondering if this is purely for fun, or if the dev believes it has practical use. Nothing wrong just-for-fun projects, of course. I loved GEOS on the C64, and it tickles me that someone's still maintaining it.
    - classichasclass 8y ago
      Keep in mind that PC/GEOS has almost nothing in common with GEOS on Commodore 8-bits or Apple II except the name. But I too am delighted to see this get open-sourced.
- Torwald 8y ago
  Why does this get downvoted? The parent did not violate any rules or code of conduct of HN. His question was on topic. HN is also an experiment of community building. As far as I am concerned, the downvotes for the parent are a sign that the experiment is moving torwards fail. If you are insecure as to when it is appropriate to downvote on HN, please read the ruleset again. Thanks.
  - detaro 8y ago
    > please read the ruleset again. There is only one written-down rule about downvotes, and your comment is breaking it.
    - Torwald 8y ago
      That's true.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    It was probably downvoted because the phrasing sounded like they were dismissing the project as pointless. From their later post it sounds like that maybe wasn't what they meant, but it wasn't clear at the time. We periodically get people on HN sneering at neat toy projects because they don't fill a business need, and we don't like that.
opencl 8y ago
These screenshots look so similar to the contemporary UNIX GUIs (Motif/VUE/CDE) that I'm surprised they never got sued over it.
- dwyerm 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure it actually is Motif. That's how I remember it, and there's certainly enough text in the source to support that.
  - opencl 8y ago
    That's really interesting, seems like they licensed the Motif API and ported the whole thing over to DOS. Because the normal Motif is very much tied to UNIX and X.
    - trasz 8y ago
      X - sure; Unix - not do much; CDE desktop ran on OpenVMS.
- johnm 8y ago
  It was similar to the Motif L&F but it was all implemented from scratch in the x86 assembly version.
soapdog 8y ago
I really liked your post. I'd love to see more people making current articles about alternative approaches to operating systems and environments like that. It seems people forgot that just about 15 ago, there were many alternatives to the current stuff we're running.
jaclaz 8y ago
Also here: http://toastytech.com/guis/geos12.html http://toastytech.com/guis/geos12.html the "successor", i.e. Newdeal Office: http://toastytech.com/guis/nd32.html http://toastytech.com/guis/nd32.html was not at all shaggy and later Breadbox Ensemble had also some nice feature (for the extremely low resources it used): http://toastytech.com/guis/bbe.html http://toastytech.com/guis/bbe.html
- SuperNinKenDo 8y ago
  I gotta say, I like that interface. The idea of having multiple levels of interface complexity is also pretty interesting. Reminds me a lot of SuperMemo for better and worse. Very cool.

azinman2 8y ago

What makes it great in 2018? Why keep alive?

fit2rule 8y ago
It could function as a great alternative to Windows or FreeDOS for those of us who don't want to pay a Microsoft tax whenever we buy a new computer. It might be useful as the basis of a new mobile-phone operating system. It is certainly interesting to the archaic-computer users out there who are maintaining old systems as a means of consolidating computing culture, as we lean more and more towards homogenisation ...
- azinman2 8y ago
  What makes an 80s/90s era 16-bit OS great in 2018? If you want free/open source, why not run Linux or FreeBSD or any if the many modern alternatives that have 64-bit support, preemptive multitasking, protected memory, modern VM, new software actively being developed for it, drivers for modern hardware, support for SSDs and USB 3.0 and nvidias, etc etc? Similarly, there’s nothing about geos that’s appropriate for a mobile device. If you want to start with something existing, Android is already open source and has a ton of existing software. Or try fuschia if you want more bleeding edge. Now if you say it’s for a hobby, or fun, or whatever then I can understand.
  - toast0 8y ago
    It seems like this OS has an interesting concept of beginner / intermediate / advanced user levels. That's not really something that's in today's systems. Looking back on earlier systems from time to time is a good way to see what we used to have, but don't anymore, and question if it's useful. Especially looking at alternates from the past that may have been overlooked in the past. The allure of using an old operating system as the basis for new work is that it would at least seem to be much simpler than a modern operating system; and it's a good thing to avoid unnecessary complexity. Of course, it may turn out that in order to work on a modern computer, you need most of the complexity. Something that's reported to work well on a 386 should be likely to feel responsive and fluid on any modern computer.
    - tomc1985 8y ago
      Yeah, modern design would say that's too much choice, so design for permanent "beginner" mode
  - shortformblog 8y ago
    I think operating systems with historic value deserve protection and the decision to keep it in development ensures its value from an archival standpoint. The fact that this source code is out there keeps it alive. It's not as simple as comparing it to the paradigm used by other operating platforms.
  - david-given 8y ago
    GEOS would run on systems three orders of magnitude smaller than the ones you describe. It was intended to work well on machines with a single megabyte of RAM, and did. I have an Android ADP1 phone on my desk at work; the first Android phone which was ever released (the G1 with the custom paint job on the back). It's a paperweight; there's nothing useful I can do with it, and it won't even talk to the Google servers any more. However, obsolete as it is, it's still staggeringly more powerful than anything GEOS ever ran on. The biggest thing systems like GEOS do for the modern developer is to be an example: to demonstrate just what you can do with a tiny, tiny amount of code. (Oh yeah, GEOS also had virtual memory and preemptive multitasking.)
- hakfoo 8y ago
  In college (2003), I took a 486-40 laptop for note-taking. It ran either a DOS+GEM setup or OS/2 3.0. This offered a no-distractions (no games, no wi-fi) experience and ran well on the available hardware. Honestly, PC/GEOS would have been even better suited to task. Less resource intensive, but still with decent WYSIWYG tools. I may have to put together a bootable device with FreeDOS and GEOS this weekend.
pmarin 8y ago
Weird question for a "Hacker" News forum.
cmrdporcupine 8y ago
The same reason that drives all interest in computing that isn't strictly for $work: because we can, and because we might find it fun.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  The GP may just be wondering if this is purely for fun, or if the dev believes it has practical use. Nothing wrong just-for-fun projects, of course. I loved GEOS on the C64, and it tickles me that someone's still maintaining it.
  - classichasclass 8y ago
    Keep in mind that PC/GEOS has almost nothing in common with GEOS on Commodore 8-bits or Apple II except the name. But I too am delighted to see this get open-sourced.
Torwald 8y ago
Why does this get downvoted? The parent did not violate any rules or code of conduct of HN. His question was on topic. HN is also an experiment of community building. As far as I am concerned, the downvotes for the parent are a sign that the experiment is moving torwards fail. If you are insecure as to when it is appropriate to downvote on HN, please read the ruleset again. Thanks.
- detaro 8y ago
  > please read the ruleset again. There is only one written-down rule about downvotes, and your comment is breaking it.
  - Torwald 8y ago
    That's true.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  It was probably downvoted because the phrasing sounded like they were dismissing the project as pointless. From their later post it sounds like that maybe wasn't what they meant, but it wasn't clear at the time. We periodically get people on HN sneering at neat toy projects because they don't fill a business need, and we don't like that.

opencl 8y ago

These screenshots look so similar to the contemporary UNIX GUIs (Motif/VUE/CDE) that I'm surprised they never got sued over it.

dwyerm 8y ago
I'm pretty sure it actually is Motif. That's how I remember it, and there's certainly enough text in the source to support that.
- opencl 8y ago
  That's really interesting, seems like they licensed the Motif API and ported the whole thing over to DOS. Because the normal Motif is very much tied to UNIX and X.
  - trasz 8y ago
    X - sure; Unix - not do much; CDE desktop ran on OpenVMS.
johnm 8y ago
It was similar to the Motif L&F but it was all implemented from scratch in the x86 assembly version.

soapdog 8y ago

I really liked your post. I'd love to see more people making current articles about alternative approaches to operating systems and environments like that. It seems people forgot that just about 15 ago, there were many alternatives to the current stuff we're running.

jaclaz 8y ago

Also here: http://toastytech.com/guis/geos12.html http://toastytech.com/guis/geos12.html the "successor", i.e. Newdeal Office: http://toastytech.com/guis/nd32.html http://toastytech.com/guis/nd32.html was not at all shaggy and later Breadbox Ensemble had also some nice feature (for the extremely low resources it used): http://toastytech.com/guis/bbe.html http://toastytech.com/guis/bbe.html

SuperNinKenDo 8y ago
I gotta say, I like that interface. The idea of having multiple levels of interface complexity is also pretty interesting. Reminds me a lot of SuperMemo for better and worse. Very cool.