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Nostalgy - Geos Desktop

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wolfsbane

New Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
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Greets all,

A few days ago I was talking with some friends about the C64 with the Geos desktop. At the time I did not use it much, but nevertheless very intressted. So I did some research and was amazed about it. Are there any people around that used Geos as we use windows now?

Here is a small video I made about Geos. Turns out they even had a Windos 95 clone at the time for x86 systems.

Geos Desktop : https://youtu.be/oh5Uql2sNa4

Cheers
 
I did not like GEOS at the time, but did use it. I don't recall what I used it for, though.
 
Hi, yes I also used BerkeleySoftworks/Geoworks' Geos64 immensely and used geoWrite to type up papers, and geoCalc to do some budgeting as well as for making class calendars (to keep my school schedule orderly) at the university. Plus my C64 had an addon turbo processor which helped speed up Geos to a faster and thus more practical environment, compared to how snail-paced it was at stock 1 MHz speed. It was "almost" like actually running a [Classic] Macintosh (which the Geos64 UI graphics basically copied) which I was also using at the uni. This was around late 1980's to early 1990's.

The Windows clone you are referring to is called Geos Ensemble for the PC and I still also have that too (versions 1.3 and 2.0) and used it a lot back in the day also, especially playing the built-in Tetris. :)

I believe I got both the 2.0 versions of Geos64 and PCEnsemble mailed to me free from Geoworks as courtesy upgrades (from v1.2/1.3) as I think many others did.

By the time the mid 1990's came and went I had pretty much stopped using the C64, and of course obviously Geos64. I also started phasing out Ensemble PC by the late 1990's as I was increasingly getting more into Windows 3.1 and 95 and 98 by then. But I still have all the Geos 64 and PC software disks, just waiting to be re-installed again one of these days.

I have not tried Wheels nor Megapatch. Berkeley also made Geos for the Apple II.
 
Yup... I also played with Geos in the later years of my C64 but it came and gone so fast because this was my transitional period to Amiga (and later on to PeeCees / work). Only now, after going retro that I realized that it has a big following among some C64 users. I still have my orginal box, manuals and mouse.
 
RobertB said:
Which accelerator did you use with the C64?
Click to expand...
Hi Robert, it's the 4 MHz Schnedler, and I believe I read somewhere awhile ago that you also own one. Having 4 MHz may not sound like much now in HINDSIGHT, but I think accelerator owners back in the late 1980's had an earlier advantage, plus that was also about 10 years before the CMD SuperCPU came about, so we had a decade and more to enjoy faster (4X) C64's (along with other accelerators at same time, like the German-made Turbo Processor, etc) until the late 1990's. GEOS64 just so happened to be a more enjoyable experience at the accelerated speed, so I'm happy to talk about it. I contacted Steve almost 10 years ago and he's back to being some sort of technology patent attorney (although he's also an EE). From what I gathered from his short correspondence with me, his experience selling 8-bit stuff wasn't that wonderful (i.e. lucrative).
 
Yes, I have the Schnedler Turbo Master CPU 4 MHz. accelerator, too.

> ...that was also about 10 years before the CMD SuperCPU came about...

Well, actually the release time between the Turbo Master CPU and the SuperCPU was shorter than that. :)

> GEOS64 just so happened to be a more enjoyable experience at the accelerated speed...

Darn right!

> I contacted Steve almost 10 years ago and he's back to being some sort of technology patent attorney (although he's also an EE).

I knew he was patent attorney. Can you still contact him if you had to?

> From what I gathered from his short correspondence with me, his experience selling 8-bit stuff wasn't that wonderful (i.e. lucrative).

Aw, that is too bad. The Turbo Master is legendary, IMO.

Sincerely,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
 
Yes, I have the Schnedler Turbo Master CPU 4 MHz. accelerator, too.

> ...that was also about 10 years before the CMD SuperCPU came about...

Well, actually the release time between the Turbo Master CPU and the SuperCPU was shorter than that. :)

> GEOS64 just so happened to be a more enjoyable experience at the accelerated speed...

Darn right!

> I contacted Steve almost 10 years ago and he's back to being some sort of technology patent attorney (although he's also an EE).

I knew he was patent attorney. Can you still contact him if you had to?

> From what I gathered from his short correspondence with me, his experience selling 8-bit stuff wasn't that wonderful (i.e. lucrative).

Aw, that is too bad. The Turbo Master is legendary, IMO.

Sincerely,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
 
wolfsbane said:
Are there any people around that used Geos as we use windows now?
Click to expand...

Yes, back in the day I didn't have a PC, so my C64 was my 'office machine', mainly my word processor. I used GeoWrite with my MPS-801 printer to write reports for school and such. With fancy fonts and things. On the PC side, things weren't quite as fancy yet. People tended to use WordPerfect, which only supported your printer's fonts, let alone WYSIWYG.
 
RobertB said:
> ...that was also about 10 years before the CMD SuperCPU came about...

Well, actually the release time between the Turbo Master CPU and the SuperCPU was shorter than that. :)
Click to expand...
Well yes I know, that's why I said "about 10 years". The TMCPU debuted in 1989, maybe even at the fringes of 1988 (I'll have to check the manual again... hmm now where did I put that manual...). The SCPU64 debuted in 1996 (the 128 version about a year or two later?). That's ~7 years (or more if you consider the SCPU128 debut), which for me is good enough for "about" a decade. :)

RobertB said:
> I contacted Steve almost 10 years ago and he's back to being some sort of technology patent attorney (although he's also an EE).

I knew he was patent attorney. Can you still contact him if you had to?
Click to expand...
Sure probably, if I "had to", but seeing as he told me he gets fan mail every now and then about the TMCPU, I would be sort of hesitant to bother the guy about it... again. I also did contact him back around 1991 on Q-Link when I needed some help on it, but he said he doesn't really remember that far away. However, I do remember because I printed off the QLink emails on my dotmatrix printer attached to my C64 back then and I still have those printouts. But if you're thinking about asking him about documentation, or even schematics, forget it, he said he dumped all that 8-bit stuff long ago, probably including those data aquisition device boards for the C64 he was also advertising.

RobertB said:
> From what I gathered from his short correspondence with me, his experience selling 8-bit stuff wasn't that wonderful (i.e. lucrative).

Aw, that is too bad. The Turbo Master is legendary, IMO.
Click to expand...
Yes indeed. Hmm, The Legend of Turbo Master, now that sounds like a good kung fu movie.
 
I recall using Geos on the kids C64s, but GeoWorks Ensemble 1.2 on my 286/16 is what I remember using more and have a fond memories of untill Windows 3.x eventually won me over.
 
Caluser2000 said:
... but GeoWorks Ensemble 1.2 on my 286/16 is what I remember using more and have a fond memories of untill Windows 3.x eventually won me over.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, GeoWorks Ensemble. Always thought it really never got much of a shot at being what it could have been simply because of Win3x. Had it installed on my first "real PC" (486DX-33) and it was amazingly fast (compared to Windows 3.1). Was so enthused about it that I spent big bucks on the SDK at the time before it went from Ensemble to NDO. Recently learned that the current owner of GEOS (i.e.---Breadbox Ensemble) passed away and the state of Geos is in flux (possibly defunct, possibly becoming somewhat "open-source")

http://www.breadbox.com
 
T-R-A said:
Ah yes, GeoWorks Ensemble. Always thought it really never got much of a shot at being what it could have been simply because of Win3x. Had it installed on my first "real PC" (486DX-33) and it was amazingly fast (compared to Windows 3.1). Was so enthused about it that I spent big bucks on the SDK at the time before it went from Ensemble to NDO. Recently learned that the current owner of GEOS (i.e.---Breadbox Ensemble) passed away and the state of Geos is in flux (possibly defunct, possibly becoming somewhat "open-source")

http://www.breadbox.com
Click to expand...
Last time I looked at the BB site the source code /SDK were readily avialable. I'm just copying my Ensemble disks over to a LS120 disk for safe keeping. The 720k 3.5" floppies haven't failed me in the 20 odd years I've had them. Be be honest PCGeos 2.x up is on par with Window3.x speed wise running on my 286/12. 1.x was nippier but the code code in 2.x slowed it down a bit and I found 1.2 gave less errors.
 
Ah GEOS for the C-64... I think it was among the very few original floppys i had (Somewhere like 3 legit floppies against 200 copied ones) - but just because for unknown reasons it was included with the C-64 when my dad bought it in the shop. The joke here was that the GEOS floppy was included with the German retail C-64 but not the floppy drive. Hey??? My dad wanted to save big bucks and bought a datasette with the C-64. So the floppy was an awesome decorational piece without any use for like 2 years. When i finally got a floppy drive i started it like once and was like "ewwww, not a game... *Ejects*". So GEOS was the only floppy i had that was legit AND pretty much unused.

Took like 20 years until i later tried GEOS on a PC and really liked it. Guess it was not made for kids...
 
When I got that GEOS disk, I happily ran out and bought GEOassembler, which I still have NIB.

Turns out I got the early version of GEOS that didn't come with GEOwrite, which GEOassembler required.

That killed my enthusiasm. It was kilt a second time decades later when my GEOS disks kept getting fouled by their copy protection scheme.
 
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