CP/M-86 / MSDOS / DRDOS / GEM / Windows

From: Lawrence Walker <lwalker_at_mail.interlog.com>
Date: Fri Sep 18 15:53:15 1998

On 17 Sep 98 at 23:56, Doug Yowza wrote:

> On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Phil Clayton wrote:
>
> > I found the most interesting article on a web site about Gary Kildall, and
> > that CP/M could have possibly been our main stream OS.
>
> Oh my, the Mac crowd would have loved to make fun of PIP and friends.
> That article reminds me of another point that hasn't yet been made in
> this drawn-out discussion. Early PC GUI's (pre-Win3) could be bound to
> individual applications. Ventura was a stand-alone GEM app. The AOL
> client was a stand-alone GEOS app. I know there were stand-alone Win
> apps, but I can't remember any names.
>
 There's an excellent stand-alone art program and image processor called
Neopaint from OSCS Software Development, Inc. not to be confused with Neochrome
which was shipped with the Atari ST. It works with Dos 3.1 and up or DRDOS
on any PC, XT, x86 and a Hercules, CGA,EGA,VGA,or SVGA card. It requires 640k
and a mouse. Not sure when it came out but suspect late 80's. I suspect it's
GEM-based.
  I think the importance of GEM is often overlooked. The Berkley GEOS
for Commodores is obviously GEM despite the disclaimers of C= proponents.
The Atari ST had GEM 1.2 in Rom and was never forced to relinquish it by
Apple.Why ? The DR GUI versus Apple is the key IMHO. I see that DR's
copyright was 1985.
 One of the things that drove the acceptance of the GUI was that office
managers could train new employees to use a computer in a day using point and
click rather than having to remember the multitude of CLI instructions. Gates
simply jumped on a bandwagon that was already there. The DR <> MS relationship
is also another interesting link. TMK DR's successor Caldera still owns the
MSDOS source-code. Not sure of the ins and outs of this.

> Just one more data-point that shows that computer evolution is
> application-driven, not the result of marketing magic or of religious wars
> between Microsoft and Apple.
>
> -- Doug
>

ciao larry
lwalker_at_interlog.com
Received on Fri Sep 18 1998 - 15:53:15 BST