• GEOS

    From Erich B. to All on Mon Aug 31 08:45:23 2020
    Does anyone remember this on the C64c when it was bundled with it? It was my first taste of Windows.

    $ The Millionaire $

    ..."Will we ever fear the ecstasy of free thought?" - Thinkman...
  • From Silver Dream !@3:770/3 to Erich B. on Tue Sep 1 01:05:48 2020
    On 30/08/2020 21:45, Erich B. wrote:
    Does anyone remember this on the C64c when it was bundled with it?

    I surely remember it even if it wasn't bundled with my machine, which
    wasn't a C64C (just regular C64).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Tristan Miller@3:770/3 to Erich B. on Tue Sep 1 09:45:15 2020
    Greetings.

    On 30/08/2020 21.45, Erich B. wrote:
    Does anyone remember this on the C64c when it was bundled with it? It was my first taste of Windows.


    I never used it myself, though I found the magazine advertisements for
    GEOS and its attendant applications quite memorable. Whoever came up
    with them was a veritable marketing genius -- those ads were more
    interesting to read than at least half of the articles in a typical
    COMPUTE!'s Gazette.

    Regards,
    Tristan

    --
    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Tristan Miller
    Free Software developer, ferret herder, logologist
    https://logological.org/ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Silver Dream !@3:770/3 to Tristan Miller on Tue Sep 1 13:17:28 2020
    On 01/09/2020 09:45, Tristan Miller wrote:
    Greetings.

    On 30/08/2020 21.45, Erich B. wrote:
    Does anyone remember this on the C64c when it was bundled with it? It was my >> first taste of Windows.


    I never used it myself, though I found the magazine advertisements for
    GEOS and its attendant applications quite memorable. Whoever came up
    with them was a veritable marketing genius -- those ads were more
    interesting to read than at least half of the articles in a typical COMPUTE!'s Gazette.

    And GEOS is a masterpiece of a product too. For example GeoPublish was
    even reviewed as first class citizen among the well established DTP
    packages of the time and praised for excellent quality for the price

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Andreas Kohlbach@3:770/3 to Erich B. on Tue Sep 1 07:59:06 2020
    On Mon, 31 Aug 2020 08:45:23 +1300, Erich B. wrote:

    Does anyone remember this on the C64c when it was bundled with it? It was my first taste of Windows.

    A friend got it "late" (1988?) and standalone as far as I remember. It
    was my second taste of Windows. First was the Amiga a year earlier.
    --
    Andreas

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Erich B. to Andreas Kohlbach on Tue Sep 1 17:04:07 2020

    On Mon, 31 Aug 2020 08:45:23 +1300, Erich B. wrote:

    A friend got it "late" (1988?) and standalone as far as I remember. It
    was my second taste of Windows. First was the Amiga a year earlier.
    --
    Andreas

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)


    GEOS was all black and white and gray but it was still cool for the time. I had an Amiga 520 and I also had a Commodore 128d. It had the 64, 64c, 128 and ML(Machine Language) modes.

    $ The Millionaire $

    ..."Will we ever fear the ecstasy of free thought?" - Thinkman...
  • From Erich B. to Silver Dream ! on Tue Sep 1 17:06:10 2020

    On 30/08/2020 21:45, Erich B. wrote:

    I surely remember it even if it wasn't bundled with my machine, which
    wasn't a C64C (just regular C64).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)


    When I went to buy the C64, it was discontinued and the C64c was the only alternative available at the time.

    $ The Millionaire $

    ..."Will we ever fear the ecstasy of free thought?" - Thinkman...
  • From J.B. Wood@3:770/3 to Erich B. on Wed Sep 2 07:11:24 2020
    On 8/30/2020 3:45 PM, Erich B. wrote:
    Does anyone remember this on the C64c when it was bundled with it? It was my first taste of Windows.

    $ The Millionaire $

    ..."Will we ever fear the ecstasy of free thought?" - Thinkman...


    Hello, and while some vendors may have put bundles together (anyone old
    enough to remember Protecto Enterprises?), AFAIK GEOS was a
    separately-sold product. I still have GEOS, DeskPack Plus, geoChart,
    geoFile and geoCalc for the C-64. Cost a few bucks but IMHO these
    products were probably as close as you could get to "killer" apps on a
    C-64, given its limitations as a practical small business platform, let
    alone home use for MS Office-like stuff. GEOS with its companion apps
    did some great Macintosh-like things but oh so slowly if all you had was
    one (not advisable) or two 1541 drives. You really needed a 1750 RAM
    expansion or the GEOS RAM cart to get things moving. Sincerely,

    --
    J. B. Wood e-mail: arl_123234@hotmail.com

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Andreas Kohlbach@3:770/3 to All on Wed Sep 2 11:38:03 2020
    On Tue, 1 Sep 2020 13:17:28 +0200, Silver Dream ! wrote:

    On 01/09/2020 09:45, Tristan Miller wrote:
    Greetings.

    On 30/08/2020 21.45, Erich B. wrote:
    Does anyone remember this on the C64c when it was bundled with it? It was my
    first taste of Windows.


    I never used it myself, though I found the magazine advertisements for
    GEOS and its attendant applications quite memorable. Whoever came up
    with them was a veritable marketing genius -- those ads were more
    interesting to read than at least half of the articles in a typical
    COMPUTE!'s Gazette.

    And GEOS is a masterpiece of a product too. For example GeoPublish was
    even reviewed as first class citizen among the well established DTP
    packages of the time and praised for excellent quality for the price

    Was also important it had support for various printers, like HP-PCL and
    the LaserWriter from Apple, thus was used in the professional environment.

    --
    Andreas

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Andreas Kohlbach@3:770/3 to J.B. Wood on Wed Sep 2 11:43:02 2020
    On Wed, 2 Sep 2020 07:11:24 -0400, J.B. Wood wrote:

    Hello, and while some vendors may have put bundles together (anyone
    old enough to remember Protecto Enterprises?),

    Not being an American I don't from back in the day. But I read a lot of old BYTE magazines in recent years and saw their aggressive ads. They
    advertised the C64 with 84K of memory, probably adding the space the rom
    chips had on top of the 64K RAM.
    --
    Andreas

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Andreas Kohlbach@3:770/3 to Erich B. on Wed Sep 2 11:40:10 2020
    On Tue, 01 Sep 2020 17:04:07 +1300, Erich B. wrote:

    On Mon, 31 Aug 2020 08:45:23 +1300, Erich B. wrote:

    A friend got it "late" (1988?) and standalone as far as I remember. It
    was my second taste of Windows. First was the Amiga a year earlier.

    GEOS was all black and white and gray but it was still cool for the time. I had
    an Amiga 520 and I also had a Commodore 128d. It had the 64, 64c, 128 and ML(Machine Language) modes.

    Here I only have emulators left. I am not able to find a working GEOS copy
    for the C64, but have one for the C128. And that is in color.
    --
    Andreas

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Silver Dream !@3:770/3 to J.B. Wood on Wed Sep 2 20:59:52 2020
    On 02/09/2020 13:11, J.B. Wood wrote:


    Hello, and while some vendors may have put bundles together (anyone old enough to remember Protecto Enterprises?), AFAIK GEOS was a
    separately-sold product.  I still have GEOS, DeskPack Plus, geoChart, geoFile and geoCalc for the C-64.  Cost a few bucks but IMHO these
    products were probably as close as you could get to "killer" apps on a
    C-64,

    I remember doing rather sizeable spreadsheets on GeoCalc, which threw
    the other C64 spreadsheet applications (I don't remember the names -
    multiplan I think was one and the other don't remember - visicalc?) on
    their knees, with quite reasonable performance.

    given its limitations as a practical small business platform, let
    alone home use for MS Office-like stuff.  GEOS with its companion apps
    did some great Macintosh-like things but oh so slowly if all you had was
    one (not advisable) or two 1541 drives.  You really needed a 1750 RAM expansion or the GEOS RAM cart to get things moving.

    True that. 1581 was already a good start as one could put/fit all needed
    things on one disk. But only adding RAM card made it fly.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Silver Dream !@3:770/3 to Andreas Kohlbach on Wed Sep 2 20:54:23 2020
    On 02/09/2020 17:40, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
    On Tue, 01 Sep 2020 17:04:07 +1300, Erich B. wrote:

    On Mon, 31 Aug 2020 08:45:23 +1300, Erich B. wrote:

    A friend got it "late" (1988?) and standalone as far as I remember. It
    was my second taste of Windows. First was the Amiga a year earlier.

    GEOS was all black and white and gray but it was still cool for the time. I had
    an Amiga 520 and I also had a Commodore 128d. It had the 64, 64c, 128 and
    ML(Machine Language) modes.

    Here I only have emulators left. I am not able to find a working GEOS copy for the C64, but have one for the C128. And that is in color.

    The initial versions didn't have much colour on the UI, but they allowed
    colour pictures within the hires mode limits obviously. Later versions
    added more UI colours.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Silver Dream !@3:770/3 to Andreas Kohlbach on Wed Sep 2 20:46:58 2020
    On 02/09/2020 17:38, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
    On Tue, 1 Sep 2020 13:17:28 +0200, Silver Dream ! wrote:

    On 01/09/2020 09:45, Tristan Miller wrote:
    Greetings.

    On 30/08/2020 21.45, Erich B. wrote:
    Does anyone remember this on the C64c when it was bundled with it? It was my
    first taste of Windows.


    I never used it myself, though I found the magazine advertisements for
    GEOS and its attendant applications quite memorable. Whoever came up
    with them was a veritable marketing genius -- those ads were more
    interesting to read than at least half of the articles in a typical
    COMPUTE!'s Gazette.

    And GEOS is a masterpiece of a product too. For example GeoPublish was
    even reviewed as first class citizen among the well established DTP
    packages of the time and praised for excellent quality for the price

    Was also important it had support for various printers, like HP-PCL and
    the LaserWriter from Apple, thus was used in the professional environment.

    Exactly. That's what I recall being reviewed and praised in a mainstream printed magazine.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Silver Dream !@3:770/3 to Erich B. on Wed Sep 2 20:51:46 2020
    On 01/09/2020 06:04, Erich B. wrote:

    On Mon, 31 Aug 2020 08:45:23 +1300, Erich B. wrote:

    GEOS was all black and white and gray

    a) no, it wasn't - remember the lobster (or whatever it was) GeoPaint
    picture ;-) - although C64 hires limitations played important role there

    b) black/white and grey was considered "professional" look at that time
    (mostly probably because the PCs weren't really capable of producing
    much colour... remember GEM? And stuff like Ventura Publisher?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From J.B. Wood@3:770/3 to Erich B. on Wed Sep 2 15:09:54 2020
    On 9/1/2020 12:04 AM, Erich B. wrote:

    GEOS was all black and white and gray but it was still cool for the time. I had
    an Amiga 520 and I also had a Commodore 128d. It had the 64, 64c, 128 and ML(Machine Language) modes.

    Hello, and that was true for the first GEOS version (1.x). The later
    2.0 version allowed for color icons (red for system files, blue for
    apps, yellow for BASIC programs, etc) on the Desktop and I have some 3rd
    party GEOS games that use color. I've also got a collection of geoPaint pictures (a few in monochrome) that even today still look impressive on
    an old C= 1701 monitor. Sincerely,

    --
    J. B. Wood e-mail: arl_123234@hotmail.com

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Erich B. to Silver Dream ! on Wed Sep 2 14:14:58 2020

    On 02/09/2020 13:11, J.B. Wood wrote:

    I remember doing rather sizeable spreadsheets on GeoCalc, which threw
    the other C64 spreadsheet applications (I don't remember the names - multiplan I think was one and the other don't remember - visicalc?) on
    their knees, with quite reasonable performance.

    given its limitations as a practical small business platform, let

    True that. 1581 was already a good start as one could put/fit all needed things on one disk. But only adding RAM card made it fly.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)


    Yeah the 1581 was a cute little drive with those 3 1/2 in. floppy disks. They had the most disk space.

    $ The Millionaire $

    ..."Will we ever fear the ecstasy of free thought?" - Thinkman...