I did GEM application development on an Olivetti M24 and various Atari ST models.
pjmlp 16 minutes ago [-]
The first MS-DOS I used was MS-DOS 3.3 at the school computer lab, however when eventually I got my own PC, it came with DR-DOS 5, and the Gem inspired ViewMax.
I wanted to like viewmax, but I think Digital Research was short-sighted. They intended it to compete with dosshell.exe, but the real competitor was windows. I was excited to get to play with GEM, but I had no way to write programs for it.
ochrist 23 minutes ago [-]
I used GEM on some PCs around 1990. At that time I had an Archimedes and was studying in a computer school. I did some DTP (a school magazine) together with a couple of classmates, and we could have done it on my Arch. But then they would have been out of it, so we used their more ordinary PCs and used GEM on them. It worked smoothly and was very responsive.
Ha! I came to say exactly the same! I (my dad) had a PC1512, CGA with B/W screen. It came with a serial mouse that we only took out of the box when we used GDE. I have to say we didn't use it much, as we were used to DOS and the "I boot the computer and directly run the application/game I want to use".
My dad used Lotus 1-2-3 a lot (I guess that it was v2.2 or so in the Amstrad).
russellbeattie 12 minutes ago [-]
I think it's interesting that in the February 1985 Computer Chronicles segment which introduced GEM [1], no mention was made of the fact that Gary Kildall was still the CEO of the company. They seem to pretend DRI is just another software company. It's quite the act they're all putting on.
I'd love to hear the back story about this. Two employees demoing their newest product on a nationally broadcast television program, where their CEO was one of the interviewers. No pressure! It's amazing how good GEM looked at the time.
(You know, I only just now realized that GEM and GEOS/GeoWorks are two totally different GUI shells for DOS in the 80s/early 90s I had them conflated in my head. I guess because they both start with 'G'?)
https://www.seasip.info/Gem/History/viewmax1.html
Felt pretty advanced compared to BBC computer!
My dad used Lotus 1-2-3 a lot (I guess that it was v2.2 or so in the Amstrad).
I'd love to hear the back story about this. Two employees demoing their newest product on a nationally broadcast television program, where their CEO was one of the interviewers. No pressure! It's amazing how good GEM looked at the time.
(You know, I only just now realized that GEM and GEOS/GeoWorks are two totally different GUI shells for DOS in the 80s/early 90s I had them conflated in my head. I guess because they both start with 'G'?)
1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oNF6rhTCFQo