SGTSQUID
Experienced Member
Deskmate worked for me in high school. I still have the disks, and it was version 3. IIRC, I put the core of it on a ram drive so it would run a lot faster I wouldn't need to change floppies as much, if at all.
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Recommendations for a GUI on an 8086
- Thread starter allCAPPS
- Start date
vwestlife
Veteran Member
DeskMate 3.04 on a Tandy 1000RL (AMD 8086 at 9.54 MHz):
1ST1
Veteran Member
But you can also give Windows 1.0 and 2.0 a chance. Also quite nice but allmost useless... There is even not the GUI killer application "Solitaire".
Stone
10k Member
I prefer Spectrum HoloByte's Solitaire Royale. I think it's the best, old solitaire around.
Trixter
Veteran Member
Seconded. GeoWorks is not only usable on an 8086, it is surprisingly fast and usable on that platform, way more than GEM. If you have any hardware EMS to give it, it positively flies.
allCAPPS
Experienced Member
Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Oh man, I forgot all about Visi On. I'll definitely have to give GeoWorks a try too. I'd heard the name but that's about it. Very useful video. Does it only run in grayscale? (Not that that's a problem. 
)
)allCAPPS
Experienced Member
By the way, I haven't tried anything yet. The original CRT died last week. I'm picking it up from the shop later today, so I'll let you all know how it goes.
Casey
Veteran Member
Ah, yes, the joy of Reversi! :sarcasm:
evildragon
Veteran Member
Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Oh man, I forgot all about Visi On. I'll definitely have to give GeoWorks a try too. I'd heard the name but that's about it. Very useful video. Does it only run in grayscale? (Not that that's a problem.
If you put in a VGA card in your model 30, then it'll be in color. Otherwise you're stuck with 1-bit monochrome video at 640x480.
Trixter
Veteran Member
Can you do that? I thought the PS/2 Model 30 was limited to built-in MCGA (my PS/2 Model 30-286 has built-in VGA). If you can add VGA to an 8086-based Model 30, will DIP switches disable the onboard MCGA?
bobba84
Veteran Member
+1. I used this on my 286 and it was great!
Caluser2000
Banned
Its not really classed a GUI as such tough.
But yeah it'll be nice to run. I've still got my original disks.
evildragon
Veteran Member
I have a model 25, which is extremely similar to the model 30, and I installed a VGA card in it without issue. Simply having the VGA card in it, disables the onboard MCGA right away. See this video where I did the mod to use the internal CRT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjnbSpuq90I
vwestlife
Veteran Member
IIRC the rare official IBM VGA card (8-bit ISA) mentioned in its documentation that it was compatible with the PS/2 Model 30.