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What is the best GUI to use within DOS?

I've never actually used a Tandy or, by extension, Deskmate. I'm actually looking forward to getting a copy running on the Tandy 1000HX that'll shortly be on its way.
 
With hindsight it was actually quite good considering the minimimal system requirements (and hence how well it ran on an XT from floppy). You can find a PC compatible version (I think!) here.
 
Appreciate the link - your blog mentions forums, but I couldn't find them? Also was curious to see what else you might have to download - any listings of stuff there, or is this private? (I'm not intending to step on toes or criticize - just asking, as I'm always curious to archive files I don't already have)
 
I liked GEM 1.2 in particular cause it was like the DOS answer to the GUI for them early Mac's and Lisa. Later versions of GEM though were crippled because Apple sued Digital Research back in the 80s, however GEM became Open Source and I remember there was a plan to develop an Open Source version which would have all the characteristics of those early GEM versions. Sadly I haven't been able to follow this cause I'm always pre-occupied doing other hobbies, I think this thing is called FreeGEM and I think their plan was to produce a multi-tasking edition taking various components from GEM (and GEM/XM?) as well as providing the modcons like Internet - basically produce an alternative GUI environment for people who don't want to use Windows! ;)
 
Tough one

Outside of Windows 3.11/95/98:

4th: Xtree Gold
3rd: Deskview (I hardly used it back in the day, wish I'd done more, am doing it now)
2nd: DirectAccess
1st: (Feel free to laugh): Frontdoor! I had nearly every DOS program tied into the Function keys! ;) Wait for user to finish on my bbs, then run a game or something...

Thou, technically, only Deskview counts in that list as it was the only one that made use of the mouse...
 
I use OpenGEM 5, a FreeGEM distro. Great for older machines that can't handle Windows 3.x. I use it on my PC/XT and it runs great with just an 8088 and 640k ram. Plus it has some cool apps.
 
Maverick1978 said:
Note: There's also another similar thread here that's worth reading...

The Graphics Menu for DOS

(yes, that's it's full name)

A friend in HS picked it up from Walmart off of one of those registered shareware endcaps that they used to have in the early 90's, selling the Commander Keens, One Must Fall, Jill of the Jungle, etc.

GM was an awesome GUI. Very Windows-like. Full custom menu support, icon-driven (import/edit your own ICO files or use the ones included w/ the system), password-protection on specific icons, pages, or the entire system. Mouse support, everything. I probably should make a screen shot - Quick Menu II was the closest thing I ever found to GM, but it paled in comparison. I used to have about 12 menu pages - one for each family member, a utilities page, several game pages (of which I locked the admin portions of the GM, and locked out the games I had purchased to keep my brother from playing them, as he was fond of refusing to help me purchase games, but quite fond of playing them after I'd purchased them). You could create icons that were shortcut applications, or that pointed to other menu pages. It was quite, quite useful.

The back-end was essentially a batch file, but GM processed these on the fly, creating the batch file and executing it as soon as one clicked on the associated icon - these were not permanently littering your hard drive, however - which was nice, given how much space you can lose with a FAT file system on smaller hard drives.

For all that it did, it's memory footprint wasn't really larger than the competition, either - about 17kb, IIRC - but when things got really tight with the conventional memory, I did finally switch to using HD Menu 4, as it's footprint was a third of that. (it wasn't a gui, much closer to DA or X-Tree in look and function)
Click to expand...


The funny thing is that if you relly look at "Grapics Menu for Dos" you can see that it is Neosoft "Quick Menu" with a slightly different face. If you look at the info tab, you can see that it is from the same company in Bend Oregon. I must say that it is a very nice program though.
 
You're right... It's been years since I went through options for the two, but GM for DOS was more advanced than QuickMenu II or III. I just kind've forget why :confused:
 
Actually, it is the other way around. Quik Menu has wallpapers, more options in the File application, more screen blankers, etc. They are the both the best GUI's for DOS in my opinion.
 
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