From:	Philippe DALLEMAGNE <Philippe DOT Dallemagne AT ensem DOT u-nancy DOT fr>
Message-Id:	<199810301406.PAA07597@ensem.u-nancy.fr>
Subject:	Re: Gem/3. A big YES vote here.
To:	opendos AT delorie DOT com
Date:	Fri, 30 Oct 1998 15:06:17 +0100 (MET)
In-Reply-To:	<19981030.061218.-64485.0.Phil.man@juno.com> from Philip A Lettkeman at "Oct 30, 98 06:12:17 am"
X-Mailer:	ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL20 (25)]
MIME-Version:	1.0
Reply-To:	opendos AT delorie DOT com

Hi,

> I got GEM from a box of disks my father-in-law had stored away in a
> closet.  Since he died my mother-in-law has been going through stuff and
> gave them to me.  It included:  GEM/3 Desktop, Desktop Publisher, PCX-IMG
> Filter Pack, Graph, Draw Plus, Wordchart, Bitstream fonts, Printer
> drivers, GEM Artline.   All of this by Digital Research.  And then
> several Softkey brand programs.  Nice Haul I think.

GEM stuff (system and apps) is available at GEMWORLD : http://cws86.kyamk.fi/mirrors/cpm/gemworld.html

> I would think that Caldera would have no problems getting their hands on
> code for GEM because of their kinship with DR.

I think they even own the rights.

> Even if not brought back as 32-bit, the GEM desktop and supplemental
> program were very good work well on even a 286.  I'm gonna try on an
> 8088? or 8086 this weekend for my daughter's school computer.

GEM runs fine on my 8086 Olivetti Quaderno Laptop (I gave GEM a run on different machines, from Pentium II/Win95 in 16-color VGA (the best GEM can achieve) to DOS 5.0 Quaderno in 640x400 mono (the best the Quaderno can achieve)).

I would like to add something about GEOS/New Deal Office : even if the shareware version of NDO is not that attractive, NDO itself is very nice. 
It is highly configurable. 
It runs also fine on my Quaderno. 
It is of course bigger than GEM but it is also more complete. NDO can handle 16 millions color display and connects to the internet. 
IMHO, NDO applications are far better (than GEM ones) even though GEM covers a large number of functionalities.
And, the last but not the least, NDO is alive and GEM is *dormant*.

IMHO, Caldera *must* include a GUI for DR-OpenDOS (whatever it is) and GEM seems to be a very good candidate, because it is simple, compact and efficient (for simple tasks) and Caldera has strong links with DR stuff.

But if you come to the need of a complete and powerful DOS application suite, NDO is (almost, nothing is perfect) perfect. This is my favourite.

bye.

Philippe.

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