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Weaselrama · 15 August 2020, 17:41

I think it's interesting to note that thanks to Apple, Digital Research's GEM OS was limited on the PC to two equal sized windows which couldn't be resized or closed to the best of my knowledge and there were no longer desktop icons. Curiously, Apple never went after Atari's version of GEM which wasn't crippled at all.

I remember back in the late 80s and early 90s coveting the Atari ST. I loved looking in the magazines at the screenshots of the applications with Atari's system font and thought it was the coolest thing I ever saw. It wasn't until I bought my Amiga in 1991 that I realized I had the better computer and OS and I started with 1.3 right before 2.x became available.

Years later, I ran a variety of Atari emulators and I was shocked at how limited the OS really was. It was a pain in the butt just to get the desktop gadgets in the right order in their directory so they ran properly, if at all. Still, I thought the Atari desktop GUI applications (running in hi-res in black and white) looked better than anything I ever saw on the Mac.

Thanks for this - I'm reading with great interest.

15 August 2020, 17:41	#11
Weaselrama Registered Voter Join Date: Oct 2019 Location: Neunkirchen aP, DE Age: 62 Posts: 570	I think it's interesting to note that thanks to Apple, Digital Research's GEM OS was limited on the PC to two equal sized windows which couldn't be resized or closed to the best of my knowledge and there were no longer desktop icons. Curiously, Apple never went after Atari's version of GEM which wasn't crippled at all. I remember back in the late 80s and early 90s coveting the Atari ST. I loved looking in the magazines at the screenshots of the applications with Atari's system font and thought it was the coolest thing I ever saw. It wasn't until I bought my Amiga in 1991 that I realized I had the better computer and OS and I started with 1.3 right before 2.x became available. Years later, I ran a variety of Atari emulators and I was shocked at how limited the OS really was. It was a pain in the butt just to get the desktop gadgets in the right order in their directory so they ran properly, if at all. Still, I thought the Atari desktop GUI applications (running in hi-res in black and white) looked better than anything I ever saw on the Mac. Thanks for this - I'm reading with great interest.