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What happened to GEM?

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Re: What happened to GEM?

#71

Post by tombert »

roryirvine wrote: post #70
tombert wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I saw that when going down my rabbit hole. Definitely a cool and useful thing for what it is. I just think that Concurrent DOS is cool because it is proper multitasking; proper time slicing and everything! And you could have multiple users logging into the same computer with terminals, à la Unix, all in the mid 80s! I have been trying to track down whoever the hell owns the license to Concurrent/Multiuser DOS to…

I think the main problem was that systems to take advantage of it tended to be either fully bespoke or were produced in runs of dozens or hundreds at most. Customisation and installation (including wiring the terminals, in the days before networking was common) were protracted processes as well. As a result, they were priced against the low-end of mid-range systems - so rather more than you might expect from looking…

I wasn't around in the 80's, since I hadn't even been conceived yet, so it's hard for me to really know what the landscape was like then.

Just reading about all the cool stuff that was available in the 80's, a part of me is kind of baffled that Microsoft was the one that ended up winning. DR-DOS and Concurrent DOS seem, at least in a lot of ways, objectively better than MS-DOS. I'm kind of surprised that Microsoft didn't just rip them off, honestly.

Re: What happened to GEM?

#72

Post by steve1977 »

zabzonk wrote: post #2

> But the bigger problem was software piracy. Piracy was common on the ST, and that made developers less enthusiastic to continue ST development Not so sure about this. The Atari/GEM combination was very popular with musicians for MIDI, and I don't think there was so much piracy, or at least not compared with other platforms of the time. The reasons I didn't develop anything much for Gem - a) It was quite difficult b…

There was a lot of piracy with MIDI software, at least in Europe.

Even though dongles were a popular copy protection.

Then again, software like Cubase didn't use much of GEM IIRC and did their own graphics.

Re: What happened to GEM?

#73

Post by steve1977 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #54
car wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going down this rabbit hole, I realize that ST hardware for musicians is still huge. And the dongles as still working as intended, apparently. And then this blew my mind: https://re-falcon.com Quite the underground scene: https://indyclassic.org

I have two Falcons here they're a compelling machine and still fun to play with. But if I were to ask for a machine repro, a new motherboard, it would be in a different PCB form factor to get it into an ITX or m-ITX case. Because it's the cases and keyboards that go, not the machine.

We almost had something like that with the Medusa and Hades Atari clones.

Re: What happened to GEM?

#74

Post by lproven »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #67
lproven wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a different recent -- and IMHO much better -- history which covers that: https://nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com/p/history-of-the-gem-...

Odd it doesn't do much on the Atari ST lineage really apart from mentioning it. Lots of articles seem to have this problem. There was a lot more going on in the 68k / Atari ST line than on PC, in the end. In the 90s most of that was in Germany though. Read up on "Magic" OS sometime. And these days, the modern variant of GEM is really EmuTOS and also Xaaes on the ST line.

It is a bit.

I tried to cover some of that here:

https://liam-on-linux.dreamwidth.org/96552.html

Re: What happened to GEM?

#75

Post by roryirvine »

tombert wrote: post #71
roryirvine wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main problem was that systems to take advantage of it tended to be either fully bespoke or were produced in runs of dozens or hundreds at most. Customisation and installation (including wiring the terminals, in the days before networking was common) were protracted processes as well. As a result, they were priced against the low-end of mid-range systems - so rather more than you might expect from looking…

I wasn't around in the 80's, since I hadn't even been conceived yet, so it's hard for me to really know what the landscape was like then. Just reading about all the cool stuff that was available in the 80's, a part of me is kind of baffled that Microsoft was the one that ended up winning. DR-DOS and Concurrent DOS seem, at least in a lot of ways, objectively better than MS-DOS. I'm kind of surprised that Microsoft di…

I suspect it was largely IBM that was winning, for most of the 80s at least. MS was seen as being very much the junior partner.

Things started to wobble badly around 1988, with the release of the bug-ridden PC/MS DOS 4.x and the travails of OS/2 1.x. Most people doggedly stuck to DOS 3.3 despite its limitations (particularly the max HD size of 32 MB, at a time when 40 MB disks had become commonplace).

The IBM/MS wobble couldn't have come at a worse time for DR, though. Multiuser DOS was being discontinued, and DR-DOS wasn't mature enough until version 5 (the first to include ViewMAX) - by which time Windows 3.0 had already been released.

Honestly, Microsoft were very very lucky to end up in the position they found themselves in in the early 90s. The success of Win 3 was a shock even to them, and it utterly transformed the OS market.

Re: What happened to GEM?

#76

Post by tombert »

roryirvine wrote: post #75
tombert wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't around in the 80's, since I hadn't even been conceived yet, so it's hard for me to really know what the landscape was like then. Just reading about all the cool stuff that was available in the 80's, a part of me is kind of baffled that Microsoft was the one that ended up winning. DR-DOS and Concurrent DOS seem, at least in a lot of ways, objectively better than MS-DOS. I'm kind of surprised that Microsoft di…

I suspect it was largely IBM that was winning, for most of the 80s at least. MS was seen as being very much the junior partner. Things started to wobble badly around 1988, with the release of the bug-ridden PC/MS DOS 4.x and the travails of OS/2 1.x. Most people doggedly stuck to DOS 3.3 despite its limitations (particularly the max HD size of 32 MB, at a time when 40 MB disks had become commonplace). The IBM/MS wobb…

Yeah, I guess I just like envisioning a universe where Gary Kildall was able to keep innovating and making cool stuff, instead of the tragic and depressing way that it actually ended.

I played with DR-DOS and OpenDOS in an emulator as well, and they both seem pretty cool, though bought of them were admittedly the later versions, and as I have stated a bunch of times, I really feel like Concurrent DOS and Multiuser DOS were way ahead of their time. Instead, the winner ended up being the objectively worse versions of things.

Re: What happened to GEM?

#77

Post by zoenolan »

zabzonk wrote: post #2

> But the bigger problem was software piracy. Piracy was common on the ST, and that made developers less enthusiastic to continue ST development Not so sure about this. The Atari/GEM combination was very popular with musicians for MIDI, and I don't think there was so much piracy, or at least not compared with other platforms of the time. The reasons I didn't develop anything much for Gem - a) It was quite difficult b…

Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) was on the Retro Hour talking about the Atari ST at the start of the year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-UOBjJjGuM

Re: What happened to GEM?

#78

Post by car »

bregma wrote: post #48
msephton wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much was an Atari plus Spectre/Aladin?

The problem was you also needed to buy a Mac to get the licensed ROMs.

I don't remember where I got them, but I think they could be copied with an EEprom programmer.

Re: What happened to GEM?

#79

Post by bitwize »

steve1977 wrote: post #72
zabzonk wrote: post #2

> But the bigger problem was software piracy. Piracy was common on the ST, and that made developers less enthusiastic to continue ST development Not so sure about this. The Atari/GEM combination was very popular with musicians for MIDI, and I don't think there was so much piracy, or at least not compared with other platforms of the time. The reasons I didn't develop anything much for Gem - a) It was quite difficult b…

There was a lot of piracy with MIDI software, at least in Europe. Even though dongles were a popular copy protection. Then again, software like Cubase didn't use much of GEM IIRC and did their own graphics.

> There was a lot of piracy with MIDI software, at least in Europe.

Hence why Gerhard Lengeling put at least as much time into the design of the dongle as he did Creator/Notator itself.

Re: What happened to GEM?

#80

Post by cout »

car wrote: post #10

Apple sued DRI, which resulted in the crippling of GEM, the glaring one I remember were static windows. You heard that right, windows were not resizable but had fixed screen locations in the PC version. Thankfully Atari licensed GEM for their 68000 machines before the lawsuit, and wasn't affected by these changes. The Atari ST (Sixteen/Thirtytwo) was very Mac like at the time. It even ran the Mac OS from Apple ROMs (…

I knew viewmax had static windows, but I always wondered why. Now I know.
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