Mail Archives: opendos/1998/10/30/15:40:49
||GEM stuff (system and apps) is available at GEMWORLD : http://cws86.kyamk.fi/mirrors/cpm/gemworld.html
| I'll probably download it and check it out. Thanks!
Well, I did download GEM and check it out.
||GEM runs fine on my 8086 Olivetti Quaderno Laptop (I gave GEM a run on
I can believe it. I found GEM quite fast. In general I found GEM to
be as advertised: simple, and therefore fast but not robust. I can see
it having advantages on an 8088, but for a 286 and above I'd much rather
having something more fully-featured.
||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
GEM would need a lot of work to be ready for prime time, what with it
not having been upgraded by DRI since 1988 apparently. New video drivers,
printer drivers, TaskManager support, and lots more would have to be added
for it to be useful for more than a graphical file manager IMO. It is
very fast for that purpose, however.
||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
I find GEM's user interface puzzling. It is a graphical interface but
apparently a non-windowing interface, from what I've seen. It remind me
more of GEOS 2.0 for the Commodore 64 than anything else.
Did support end for GEM before DR-DOS 6? The lack of TaskMax/TaskMgr
support is strange if not. I use a lot of DOS programmes (Telix and RAR
chiefly) and I find it annoying not to be able to launch them from GEM.
Sure, GEM can launch them but GEM doesn't step out of the way by launching
new tasks for each programme. It seems to me that you couldn't use a DOS
programme that required more than 400k of base memory because GEM seems to
shell to DOS and leave itself in memory in the same task as the programme
you load. This also means you can't task-switch back to GEM.
Very frustrating.
|though GEM covers a |large number of functionalities. And, the last but
|not the least, NDO is |alive and GEM is *dormant*.
Dormancy can be changed, as New Deal proved by reviving Geoworks
Ensemble. GEM, however, has been dormant for ten years and shows it. The
work that would be needed to upgrade GEM to modern standards would be not
much less than a total re-write, IMO.
||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.
TaskManager support would have to be integrated. GEM would be fine as
a file manager but not as a programme launcher what with it not apparently
being able to load anything that requires more than 400k. :( A GUI must
be both a good file manager and programme launcher to be accepted by
users, I suspect.
A way of creating shortcuts or launchers to DOS programmes is necessary
too, IMO. New Deal has a different icon for DOS programmes with a .EXE
(and .COM) extension and DOS programmes are therefore easy to find and
load, and you can create shortcuts to ones you load often. With GEM, I
found myself taking longer than I wanted searching for executables in
large directories because they don't have a unique icon, and there's no
way to create shortcuts to them (actually, I guess you could create batch
files that load executable and put them in a central directory of batch
files; more steps than its worth IMO).
There seems to be something wrong with GEM's serial mouse driver. It
worked fine for left/right/down but when I pushed the mouse upwards the
pointer shot to the very top of the screen with the slightest push. I had
to load MOUSE.COM instead, which uses more memory. Frustrating.
||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.
I agree, but Caldera needn't necessarily acquire rights to distribute
the entire office suite. They could just include the new Windows95-style
GUI and the new desktop-based file-manager/programme-launcher itself.
This would provide Caldera with a great, small, and fast graphical front
end that would run on any x86 system (including the 8088), one fully
integrated with DR-DOS's task-switcher. It would help with marketing
DR-DOS to those who've used Win95 and want a friendlier face on DOS. This
could even help them with certain types of embedded systems (such as
smartphones).
Steven Hurdle
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