PC GEOS or GeoWorks could run on 8088, right?

[swelljoe@mas.to]

PC GEOS or GeoWorks could run on 8088, right? I wonder if it runs on PCjr... I was always curious about it, but didn't own a PC when it was relevant. My first PC was Windows 95 era, and it soon got Red Hat Linux.

That's also part of why it failed, I think? They wrote much of it in assembler and going to 32-bit architecture while competing with a much better funded Microsoft and Apple was a challenge maybe?

[swelljoe@mas.to]

I think this means "yes", and also, the source is available! I knew GEOS for C64 and C128 was floating around out there somewhere, didn't know the PC version also got liberated.

[jonathankoren@sfba.social]

@swelljoe I used the c64 goes back in the day. It’s word processor was pretty cool. It was wysiwyg and could insert images. Light years above Bank Street Writer and whatever shareware word processor I usually used for papers. (The shareware one had a self updating minimap with layout, so that was something)

[swelljoe@mas.to]

@jonathankoren yeah, I used C64 GEOS for all my school work for at least a couple of years. Before that I had SpeedScript, the first version of which my dad and I typed in from a magazine. I seem to recall I used some other word processor on C128, but I don't remember what. Then it was Final Writer on Amiga.

But, GEOS has a certain nostalgic magic about it. I've tinkered with it more recently, and it is dog slow on a C64 with a real disk drive and no RAM expansion, I don't know how I endured.

[swelljoe@mas.to]

@jonathankoren but, I recall from reviews at the time that GEOS on PC was allegedly crazy great for low end hardware. Much faster and more responsive than early Windows versions even on faster hardware, and it could run on stuff Windows wouldn't touch (like an 8088). I vaguely even recall it had some kind of multitasking, which Windows and MacOS didn't have at the time.