#GeoWorks

Gorgeous na Shock!indigoparadox
2025-01-21

My arrived... I took a chance since *every* one on ebay couldn't power on, and sure enough it has a fiddly battery mechanism involving safety switches that nobody bothered to figure out! So it works! 🎉

Except the lower half of the screen is a bit wonky... might be a loose cable, worth a stripping and cleaning...

Anyway, it comes with . Which isn't surprising, since there was a version...

Gotta make a serial cable for the weird port and figure out the PCMCIA slot...

Photo of a slate-style PDA with a monochrome LCD display showing the America Online login window. The image on the screen is missing some stripes in an irregular pattern.Closeup of the side of the previously mentioned PDA, with a slim 10-pin port that looks like it accepts a card edge with a D shell and some clips.
2024-12-03

Jetzt mit 640 KB RAM habe ich es endlich geschafft auch Geoworks zu installieren. Eine moderne Motif-UI auf einer 8088er CPU mit 9.54 Mhz aus dem Jahr 1988

P.S. ich bitte um Entschuldigung für den nackigen Euro-PC im Bild

#Retro #RetroComputer #EuroPC #geoworks

Geoworks Ensemble auf einem Schneider Euro-PC
2024-09-27

@windowsonwindows This was the far better GUI for DOS in 1992... running even on older XTs and ATs. Later it came out, that MS gagged its Vendors on Windows #geoworks #geos

Screenshot of Geoworks Ensemble within VM on modern PC
Michael Gisiger :mastodon:gisiger@nerdculture.de
2024-08-28

“Before Windows became a fact of life for most computer users, a scrappy upstart named #GeoWorks tried taking Microsoft on. It failed, but it gave us the #Nokia #Communicator 9000.”

tedium.co/2019/06/20/geoworks-

I'm still toying with the idea of giving a talk on #GEOS and/or a showcase of original hardware and the various GEOS/GeoWorks versions at a conference. Could be fun, now that parts of GeoWorks are going to be open source.

via @feedle

#retrocomputing

2024-07-03

i've been posting a lot of my shareware research lately, because i've been working on a project for the past few months with a blend of Windows 3.1 & GeoWorks Ensemble used as inspiration.

Exigy is a tile-based game creation kit that lets you make windows 3.1/95-styled games, like spiderweb software's Exile or rick saada's Castle of the Winds. hell, you could remake the Microsoft Entertainment Pack if you wanted to :)

the editor is very intentionally built to work like MS Visual Basic: you can drag and drop any GUI element into the game editor window and script in your own actions with lua. it even comes with its own built-in sprite editor, so you can create your art while you work.

games are modified in real-time with no compiling. the entire thing is built in Love2D.

think of it as ZZT for windows 3.1 if that had ever existed. 😆

#zzt #shareware #dosgaming #windows95 #win31 #exigy #gamedev #geoworks

A game creation kit using the GeoWorks ensemble GUI skin for window frames, and the windows 3.1 grey icons for buttons.

Windows, clockwise from top-left:
Editor Tools: drag and drop these GUI elements into the Game Window. There is a Tile map tool, a Label tool, an NPC tool, a Button tool, a new Window tool, a cat-NPC tool, a mouse-NPC tool, an image tool and a grid tool.

Tiles: A tile window showing the available tile brushes to create a map with.

Terrain Editor: a tile map made using the tile brushes, with a little mouse on it.

Message box: a pop-up box that reads "Welcome to the Terrain Editor!"

Sprite Editor: A cat has been loaded into the sprite editor.

Colors: A palette of 16 default Windows 3.1 colours

Game Window: a sample game window, Visual Basic style, showing a clickable button, a text label, and an image loaded.
Michael Gisiger :mastodon:gisiger@nerdculture.de
2024-07-02

The Register: #FreeDOS and #FreeBSD prove old code never dies, just gets nifty update

theregister.com/2024/07/02/fre

"The classic #GEOS graphical desktop, which started out on the #Commodore 64 and later moved to the PC and was variously renamed #GeoWorks, #BreadboxEnsemble, and other names, is now #FOSS and you can get it from GitHub"

github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos

For years I have been thinking about writing an article and possibly giving a talk on the evolution of GEOS. 🤷

Richard Erikssonsillygwailo
2024-06-04

Could PC/GEOS conceivably run in WASM? github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos

@Rp12Biker :verified:Rp12Biker@oldbytes.space
2024-06-04

Oh, there seems to be a first release of #GeoWorks PC/Geos found here:
github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
I didn't tried to install it on an old machine, so your feedback is welcome. If I remember correctly you have to download the fonts from another distribution. But there are some fonts included in the archive.
#RetroComputing #FreeGEOS #Geos

2024-05-18

yep, that's the font alright.

😎 dare to dream

#geoworks #fonts

The Geoworks Ensemble logo, re-imagined as a DesqView/X OS.
2024-05-18

fellow geoworks lovers and related operating system outcasts:

does anyone know how/where the GeoWorks 1.x/2.x *system* bitmap fonts are stored?

i'm speaking specifically about the fonts used throughout the UI, and the one used on the splash screen for "Ensemble 2.0"

i've spent hours trying to figure this out, and i'm not much closer

#geoworks

A screenshot of the Preferences pane from GeoWorks Ensemble 2.0, showing many pretty 16-colour icons.A screenshot of the GeoWorks Ensemble 2.0 splash screen, showing the titular text over a blue globe.
@Rp12Biker :verified:Rp12Biker@oldbytes.space
2024-03-23

I'm really in a shocked love state. As promised, here are some better pictures of the #SiemensNixdorf #PCD4NL. It's a small lottery win: No scratches, no breaks, not really discolored. Looks like it's been sleeping in its pocket for the last 30 years.
And as you can see, I still have the original warranty certificate in case something breaks. I added an optical PS/2 mouse to make #GeoWorks easier to use.
#RetroComputing #Intel486 #ComputerMuseum

Siemens-Nixdorf PCD-4NL with pocket and warranty cardClosed machineKeyboard with roller ball mouse
@Rp12Biker :verified:Rp12Biker@oldbytes.space
2024-03-22

The Siemens-Nixdorf #PCD4NL arrived today. After a medium long evening here is the result. First try was looking for the defective floppy - belt broken. Afterwards directly to an image and this to a SD card with adapter for 2,5" IDE.
#GeoWorks and #Win311 starting like rockets, the small 486 is more than powerful enough for it. More detailled pics in better quality will follow. Enough for today.
#RetroComputing #Windows #Geos #ComputerMuseum

Norton commander cloneGeoWorks 2.0 from 1993 starts faster as word on an actual multi core machineWin 3.11 program manager
2023-10-18

#GEOS #GeoWorks still hanging at "Initializing Drive module" on #book8088

I have this terrible feeling that it's trying to look at A: and B: .... Which do not exist...

OTOH this operation should eventually time out. i think ...

2023-10-12

So I'm trying to get #GEOS #Geoworks running on the #Book8088. tldr not working yet.

10x 360k virtual disks. Extracted the files with dcfr. Won't run like that it has to be installed, almost all the files are actually compressed. The installer will ONLY install from a: or b:

fine. copied the files onto a new sd card that the #book8088 has decided to talk to, once a fat16 partition has been set up.

used SUBST to assign b: to the d:. edited geos.toc to only refer to the one disk 1/2

2023-10-03

it looks like dcfr correctly extracted all files from the #geos #geoworks 1.2 disk images (10x 360k images!)

i would like to confirm that by actually running geos but kernel.exe bombs out with "undefined error" on the #Tandy1000 .

Scott Williams 🐧vwbusguy@mastodon.online
2023-09-21

Nor the glory of #Geoworks PC-GEOS for that matter.

Welcome screen for PC-GEOS
2023-08-08

Ich will seit Jahren #Sicherheitskopien erstellen. Ich hoffe es ist nicht zu spät 😂 #Geoworks #Disketten

Ein Stapel 3,5" Disketten mit Geoworks Ensemble
2023-07-14

Dug out this late-90s-vintage Brother GeoBook from my work archive, after reading oldvcr.blogspot.com/2023/06/o-

We (at STNC) wrote the IP stack and web browser libraries (maybe email too?).

There's only the tiniest bit, if any, of my code on this - I did a few weeks on it when I started at STNC but then switched to the Psion Series 5 web browser.

#Brother #GeoBook #STNC #retrocomputing #Geoworks #GEOS

Photo of the screen of a GeoBook showing the web browser (in all its late-90s glory)Close-up of the BIOS message when booting up, including the text "FOR DEVELOPMENT TEST ONLY.  NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION"Photo of the serial number sticker on the underside of the Geobook.  Alongside the usual information is also printed: "PREPRODUCTION SAMPLE.  NOT FOR RESALE"

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