GEOS (8-bit operating system)

From ArticleWorld

GEOS was a Berkeley Softworks operating system, initially aimed at the Commodore64 8-bit machine. It was released in 1986 and provided a complete desktop environment, making it one of the smallest and most capable systems of its kind.

The desktop environment

In terms of look and design, the GEOS desktop environment was quite similar to the early designs of MacOS. It includes full support for the C64 mouse, and comes bundled with several applications. Some of these became quite popular: the geoWrite was used for DTP even in the 90s, because it was simple to use and GEOS could print to high-end printers, although the program itself was not as powerful as Quark XPress, for example. It included a color graphics program (geoPaint, extended from an initial monochrome-only version), full support for cutting and pasting text and pictures, and drag-and-drop support for files.

Platforms

Although GEOS was initially intended for the Commodore64, it was later ported for other machines. The most notable ports were the ones for Apple II and Commodore 128, although a less used port for the Commodore Plus/4 was also released.

GEOS took full advantage of the hardware expansions in any of these machines. It included a fast loader that could make better use of the otherwise awfully slow 1541. On the Commodore 128, full support for burst mode was also available. GEOS supported RAM expansion units as well, and could even operate in the high resolution mode supported by Commodore 128.

The greatest advantage GEOS had was its ability to print to many printers, including Apple LaserWriter and Hewlett-Packard PCL printers. Along with the low cost of GEOS's host platforms, it made GEOS an excellent alternative for workstations, and many companies actually ran their business on this operating system.

Later, GEOS was extended and published as a 16-bit operating system for x86-based computers, too.

Freeware

In 2003, the 8-bit version of GEOS for Apple II was published under a freeware (non-open-source) license. This release was followed by another one, in February 2004, which made the versions for Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 available as freeware.