GEOS

GEOS (Graphic Environment Operating System) oli Berkeley Softworksin (sittemmin Geoworks GEOS: The Graphical Environment Operating System, haettu 10.12.2008 "At the start of the 90s, Berkeley Softworks became Geoworks, and with the new name - a whole new strategy and a new OS." ) kehittämä graafinen käyttöjärjestelmä, joka toimi myös vanhentuneissa ja hitaissa kotitietokoneissa vähäisellä muistilla. Sen ensiversio Commodore 64:lle ja 128:lle julkaistiin 1986  OS News: GEOS - The Graphical Environment Operating System, haettu 10.12.2008 "The Graphical Environment Operating System was released in 1986, created by Berkeley Softworks: a small company start-up by serial entrepreneur Brian Dougherty. GEOS is a classic Mac like GUI running on Commodore 64 / 128 hardware, then later the Apple II, and PC." .

 Commodore GEOS 

GEOSin ensimmäinen 8-bittinen versio tehtiin Commodore 64:lle ja MOS 6502 -mikrosuorittimelle. Myöhemmin se oli saatavilla myös Apple II -tietokoneelle. 

 Geoworks Ensemble 

1990 esiteltiin PC-GEOS, joka toimi käyttöliittymänä DOSin päällä IBM PC-yhteensopivissa henkilökohtaisissa tietokoneissa. PC-GEOSin koodi oli optimoitu OS News: Interview with Adam de Boor, haettu 10.12.2008 "Adam de Boor: GEOS had two major strengths, technically speaking: 1. it was highly, highly optimized; 2. so much of what an application needed to do was already implemented as object classes in the system, with a nice model/view/controller mechanism to allow you to incorporate the classes into your apps. We often pointed out that GeoWrite, which could do a number of things in 1990 that Word only got to in 2000, was only 150K, and about half of that was precompiled object instances. What we didn't say was there was another 500K of code in the system that implemented most of the functionality." , ja se toimi hyvin vaatimattomissa laitekokoonpanoissa, jopa 8086-suorittimella ja 512 kB:n muistilla, toisin kuin samoihin aikoihin yleistynyt Microsoft Windows 3.0. PC-GEOSia markkinoitiin nimellä Geoworks Ensemble, mutta PC-versiosta ei lopulta ollut vastusta Windowsille, jonka valtteja olivat DOS-ohjelmien moniajokyky ja tehtävänvaihto OS News: Interview with Adam de Boor, haettu 10.12.2008 "Finally, there was the major advantage that Windows 3.0 had when it launched 6 months before Ensemble 1.0: you could multitask the existing DOS applications using it. It might have been buggy. It might not have always worked. But it worked well enough that 3.0 was mostly used for task switching and solitaire, and that was enough." . Vaasalainen GeoTrack Oy julkaisi Geoworks Ensemblestä myös suomenkielisen version. Kokiessaan kilpailevan käyttöjärjestelmän uhkana, ja koska se sisälsi kiinnostavia toiminnallisuuksia, Microsoftin johto teki Geoworksin tiimille ostotarjouksen, mutta se torjuttiin GEOS: The Graphical Environment Operating System, haettu 10.12.2008 "Bill Gates called Brian Dougherty to discuss buying Geoworks and moving the developers to Seattle to incorporate some of the innovations in PC/GEOS into Windows. PC/GEOS had the Start Menu concept a full 2 years before Microsoft. The developers were not interested in moving, and the lead VC advised against it. [...] Ballmer was the bad cop, he came in and said, "Look if you don't sell or license to us, we really have to crush you, we can't afford to have a competing PC operating system". I don't think he was trying to be mean or intimidating; it was just matter of fact.".

 GEOS ja pienlaitteet 

Lopetettuaan työasemaversion tukemisen Geoworks-yhtiö keskittyi kämmentietokoneisiin GEOS: The Graphical Environment Operating System, haettu 10.12.2008 "The original GEOS still continued its life through licensing the OS to mobile phone and PDA manufacturers, appearing on early PDA devices like the Nokia Communicator 9000 & 9110. This provided users with the power of the GEOS user interface (and geoCalc) on the emerging hardware." . GEOSia käytettiin Nokia Communicatorin malleissa 9000 ja 9110 Nokia Press Release 18.3.1998, haettu 10.12.2008 "The Nokia 9110 Communicator has a 486 based AMD embedded processor and a GEOS 3.0 operating system platform.".

 Breadbox Ensemble 

Vaikka Geoworks Ensemble ei koskaan saavuttanut suurta suosiota, se ei silti täysin hävinnyt. America Online käytti GEOSin runtime-versiota internetyhteyspaketissaan, joka toimitettiin yhdellä 3,5 tuuman levykkeellä. Yhtiö nimeltä New Deal Inc. otti GEOSin haltuunsa 1996 ja julkaisi Geoworks Ensemblen 2.1 -versioon pohjautuvan NewDeal Office -ohjelmistokokonaisuuden GEOS: The Graphical Environment Operating System, haettu 10.12.2008 "This company took over development of PC/GEOS, naming it 'NewDeal Office' in 1996 to compete in the education space with Microsoft. NewDeal Office required far less hardware resources than Windows 95, suiting older equipment perfectly." . Kirjoituskoneistaan paremmin tunnettu Brother Corporation käytti Geoworksin versiota 3.0 vuonna 1998 esitellyssä edullisessa GeoBook-kannettavassaan NB-60, jossa oli 9,4-tuumainen VGA-tasoinen harmaasävynäyttöBreadbox.com: Brother Introduces GeoBook(TM): The World's First Personal Digital Notebook, haettu 10.12.2008  Brother Makes Successful Move Into K-12 Market With Introduction of GeoBook (24.8.1998), haettu 10.12.2008 "In the wake of successful showings at major educational technology conferences this year, Brother International Corporation today announced the creation of a separate education division for its GeoBook(TM) product line. The new division was formed in anticipation of increased demand for GeoBooks during the 1998 - 1999 school year. The notebook-style computer continues to win rave reviews from school technology coordinators and educational technology analysts for its affordability, features and ease of use. Entry-level models with an internal modem and a host of productivity and on-line applications are already available for $499." Nathan's GEOS Page, haettu 10.12.2008 . 

2003 Breadbox Computer Company -yhtiö osti kaikki oikeudet Geoworksiin julkaisten oman versionsa nimellä Breadbox EnsemblePC Magazine: GEOS Definition, haettu 10.12.2008  "An operating system that provides a graphical interface for PDAs and consumer-oriented devices from the Breadbox Computer Company, Brooksville, FL (www.breadbox.com). Originally developed by Geoworks Corporation of Emeryville, CA, the GEOS patents were licensed and then sold to Breadbox in 2003.". Breadboxia markkinoidaan edelleen vaihtoehtona kalliimmille ratkaisuille yhteisöissä ja kouluissa, kun halutaan pidentää muutoin jo vanhentuneiden tietokoneiden elinkaarta Breadbox.com, haettu 10.12.2008 "With simple point and click interfaces, laser quality output (even on dot matrix printers), and clear video modes up to 1280 x 1024 x 16.7 million colors Breadbox is the easy way to transform a 386, 486, or Pentium PC into a very powerful graphical, state-of-the-art package. Breadbox Ensemble even runs on computers with as little as 640K RAM and 20 MB of free Hard Disk space!" .

 Lähteet 

 Aiheesta muualla 
8-bittinen GEOS  
Lataa GEOS Commodore 64 ja 128:lle 
Kuvaruutukaappauksia 
 GEOS Resource  

Luokka:Käyttöjärjestelmät

cs:GEOS