Thanks for this video series, it really brings back memories! I was a serious GEOS user. By serious I mean, all of my high school homework papers were done with it. Teachers LOVED the documents combining different fonts and graphics! (other students using a computer submitted simple, text-only dot-matrix printouts). I even created a nice set of laboratory clipart (flasks, petri dishes, etc.) that I could reuse. In my case I used GEOS 128 v2 with an 80-column display. It allowed GeoWrite to display the whole width of the document without the need for scrolling AND allowed the computer to run @ 2 MHz. The extra RAM and a dual disk configuration also made it quite usable, especially with the increased speed of the 1571 drive. The only downside was the print time. It took around 30 minutes for my dot-matrix printer to print a single page! I remember it made three passes over the same area to increase the DPI, and the limited print buffer was not enough to completely print the whole width of the page on a single pass), I usually had to leave the print job running over night, but the results were totally worth it.
I had the 1525 dot matrix printer and yes, it was about 30 minutes per page! It would print about 1/5th or 1/6th of a line, go back to start of the line without advancing the paper, then skip over what it printed and print the next fraction of line, go back to start of the line, and so on. Excruciatingly slow. Totally worth having a beautiful result, though.
I had a seikosha 9-pin with NLQ (near letter quality) that worked pretty much the same way. It looked a lot more like typewriter print, but took FOREVER to print a page if you used it.
I was in school in the 80s and used GEOS for homework. I badly wanted a 1581 drive and an REU back then, because I couldn’t afford a more advanced computer. But I couldn’t afford the 1581 drive or the REU for the same reason! With the benefit of hindsight, I’d have been better served purchasing an inexpensive Laser (or even a Commodore, or Tandy) IBM clone (what we’d call a “PC” today), the moment PC/GEOS came out. It was soooooooo much better than anything else out there at that time, performance-wise, and remained that way for many years.
In the 90's I had a really big GEOS setup. A 1581 and a CMD HD. But also the Flash8 accelerator which uses an 8 MHz 65C816 CPU. It also has 1 MB RAM onboard. Using an Expansionport Y-Adapter I could add the memory of my 2 MB BBGRAM. So I had 3072K RAM in GEOS, enough for two RAM 1581. With the DeskTop-replacement TopDesk it is possible to use all four drives simultaneously. TopDesk also has true windows and a type of subdirectories, which are also working on Commodore floppies. Working with this GEOS setup is a dream.
Best set of GEOS demonstrations I've ever seen. Nice work. I had GEOS back in the day, though I didn't have a RAM expansion card or second drive until much later. So, I used Paperclip with a card that provided 80 columns (at least that's what I think I remember) and an Okidata printer. I was always moving on to the latest systems when they became available.
Man I remember how slow it was but how cool also. I had it on my 64C and later I think on my Apple IIc+ with a whopping 1 MB RAM disk which made it useable. Took a while to load it on the ram disk but as long as you didn’t turn it off you were good.
I believe GEOS comes with its own fast-loader (as did a lot of software by the time it was released), which is why you may not see any speedup vs. the default KERNAL. If there was no fast-loader the difference between JiffyDOS and the stock KERNAL would be almost an order of magnitude.
Man this was a great pair of videos! I really like how you planned the progression to show how you could speed up the experience and turn it into an pseudo-professional wordprocessing workstation.
just like @sgerar37 I was also a user of GEOS 128 V2.0 back in the day for lots of mainly school stuff in geoWRITE. I also used 1571 (128D integrated), 80col mode and a 1750. As printer I used geos LQ with an Epson FX800 and so it used higher resolution by interlacing, muuuch better print quality. By the way the 1750 and 1700 did work on a C64 theoretically, but the C64 power supply usually was not powerful enough, the 1764 supplied a new power supply which replaced the C64s own. Thats why only the 1764 was supported on C64. On C128 the power supply was already powerful enough.
I remember how me and a friend were installing it in the 90s. We were amazed how good it looked. But it was so limited because of the hardware. We didn't have such a ram expansion cartridge back then
Is the JiffyDOS problem with the emulation environment you are using. I had a real C64 with JiffyDOS, 1541, 1581, 1764REU expanded to 512kb, back in the day and never had any issues with GEOS and JiffyDOS. At university, my C64 set-up was nearly as fast as my roommate's black & white Macintosh. He was really surprised by the old C64. Anyway, I used GeoSpell a lot and it didn't crash with my JiffyDOS. Off hand, I don't think there was anything that didn't work with JiffyDOS. It may not have been 100% compatible with everything out there, but my experience was 100% and 100% with GEOS programs.
To anyone who bought a CMD HD back in the day… why did you do that, versus upgrading to an Amiga, a PC, or something else that could make much better use of an HDD? I wanted a CMD HD way back when, but could never justify the cost when I could get a computer that was so much more capable with that kind of money instead.
Makes lions wonder what would have happened if they had a fully tricked out C64 in 1985 with RAM expander, 2 drives, full development tools, modem, unlimited phone tolls. Might have flunked out of school but been immensely better off by age 25.
It would be interesting to do similar video with original 128K Mac. The experience with setting up disks and swapping them often was not all that different…..
Thank you! As a kid I was to young to understand geos. Now, as I am getting back into Commodore stuff, I really benefit from your tutorial. Are there big differences between geos 1 on C64 and Geos 128 (and 2.0) on C128s? Have a nice day, llap! 🖖🏻
OK, now I’m curious whether you could fully cache a 1571 drive. If so, it would be a tough call between a fully cached 1571, or a directory cached 1581.
Does the emulator emulate both the Commodore REUs and the ones that were made that only work with GEOS? I don’t think I ever really understood the difference. ❤ this series btw, I had GEOS 128 with the 1571 up through 1991. I never was able to get things like Jiffy DOS back then so I suffered the slowest loads lol.
The GeoRAM expansions did not have a DMA chip, i.e. they didn't include the coprocessor that was in the Commodore REUs that could copy memory around on its own. The GeoRAM used paging instead, i.e. a special section of the internal RAM could be switched around to the different pages of the REU. This approache was much slower than the DMA because it required the CPU to copy the data into that special section to store them in the REU (but still much faster than storing the data on a disk drive).
This was a great walk though. I don't entirely see the point of pulling things to the desktop outside of their folder. If its just a reference, and the fact that they are there are stored on the disk, then what exactly is the desktop?
The only reason that I found to put items on the side of the desktop was to copy them to other disks when you were using GEOS in a single disk system. The desktop in GEOS is really just a directory of what is on the current active disk. It's not really a desktop like we know it now.
I got GEOS with my 1541-II drive but the operating system never worked as it refused to load any of the programs because of the lack of RAM and I never even realized they sold RAM expansions for C64.
The ram expansions were only used as "RAM Disks". No software of the time needed anymore memory than what the C64 came with. You must have had some other issues loading them.
What MDT said -- if I need to do anything like that, I keep my fingers near Alt-W to switch from Warp to 200% speedup, as the later is good for typing.
Thanks for this video series, it really brings back memories! I was a serious GEOS user. By serious I mean, all of my high school homework papers were done with it. Teachers LOVED the documents combining different fonts and graphics! (other students using a computer submitted simple, text-only dot-matrix printouts). I even created a nice set of laboratory clipart (flasks, petri dishes, etc.) that I could reuse. In my case I used GEOS 128 v2 with an 80-column display. It allowed GeoWrite to display the whole width of the document without the need for scrolling AND allowed the computer to run @ 2 MHz. The extra RAM and a dual disk configuration also made it quite usable, especially with the increased speed of the 1571 drive. The only downside was the print time. It took around 30 minutes for my dot-matrix printer to print a single page! I remember it made three passes over the same area to increase the DPI, and the limited print buffer was not enough to completely print the whole width of the page on a single pass), I usually had to leave the print job running over night, but the results were totally worth it.
I can only imagine how much your family must have loved listening to the sawmill (a.k.a. dot-matrix printer) working overnight... 😃
I had the 1525 dot matrix printer and yes, it was about 30 minutes per page! It would print about 1/5th or 1/6th of a line, go back to start of the line without advancing the paper, then skip over what it printed and print the next fraction of line, go back to start of the line, and so on. Excruciatingly slow. Totally worth having a beautiful result, though.
I had a seikosha 9-pin with NLQ (near letter quality) that worked pretty much the same way. It looked a lot more like typewriter print, but took FOREVER to print a page if you used it.
I was in school in the 80s and used GEOS for homework. I badly wanted a 1581 drive and an REU back then, because I couldn’t afford a more advanced computer. But I couldn’t afford the 1581 drive or the REU for the same reason! With the benefit of hindsight, I’d have been better served purchasing an inexpensive Laser (or even a Commodore, or Tandy) IBM clone (what we’d call a “PC” today), the moment PC/GEOS came out. It was soooooooo much better than anything else out there at that time, performance-wise, and remained that way for many years.
In the 90's I had a really big GEOS setup. A 1581 and a CMD HD. But also the Flash8 accelerator which uses an 8 MHz 65C816 CPU. It also has 1 MB RAM onboard. Using an Expansionport Y-Adapter I could add the memory of my 2 MB BBGRAM. So I had 3072K RAM in GEOS, enough for two RAM 1581. With the DeskTop-replacement TopDesk it is possible to use all four drives simultaneously. TopDesk also has true windows and a type of subdirectories, which are also working on Commodore floppies. Working with this GEOS setup is a dream.
Another great video. I remember using GEOS on. Commodore 128 back in the day.
Best set of GEOS demonstrations I've ever seen. Nice work. I had GEOS back in the day, though I didn't have a RAM expansion card or second drive until much later. So, I used Paperclip with a card that provided 80 columns (at least that's what I think I remember) and an Okidata printer. I was always moving on to the latest systems when they became available.
Man I remember how slow it was but how cool also. I had it on my 64C and later I think on my Apple IIc+ with a whopping 1 MB RAM disk which made it useable. Took a while to load it on the ram disk but as long as you didn’t turn it off you were good.
Something to note with your video. I believe that CMD released a version of GEOS that worked with the CMD-HD and JiffyDOS.
I believe GEOS comes with its own fast-loader (as did a lot of software by the time it was released), which is why you may not see any speedup vs. the default KERNAL. If there was no fast-loader the difference between JiffyDOS and the stock KERNAL would be almost an order of magnitude.
Many memories(and sleepless nights) working on the 64.
Great vids, keep it 8,1
Man this was a great pair of videos! I really like how you planned the progression to show how you could speed up the experience and turn it into an pseudo-professional wordprocessing workstation.
I believe the reason you can turn off DMA access is that they brought out a geoRAM module that had lots of RAM but didn’t support DMA.
just like @sgerar37 I was also a user of GEOS 128 V2.0 back in the day for lots of mainly school stuff in geoWRITE. I also used 1571 (128D integrated), 80col mode and a 1750. As printer I used geos LQ with an Epson FX800 and so it used higher resolution by interlacing, muuuch better print quality.
By the way the 1750 and 1700 did work on a C64 theoretically, but the C64 power supply usually was not powerful enough, the 1764 supplied a new power supply which replaced the C64s own. Thats why only the 1764 was supported on C64. On C128 the power supply was already powerful enough.
Great enthousiasm, so pleasent to watch ! Thanks for this video
I remember how me and a friend were installing it in the 90s. We were amazed how good it looked. But it was so limited because of the hardware. We didn't have such a ram expansion cartridge back then
woohoo ! here it is :D
Is the JiffyDOS problem with the emulation environment you are using. I had a real C64 with JiffyDOS, 1541, 1581, 1764REU expanded to 512kb, back in the day and never had any issues with GEOS and JiffyDOS. At university, my C64 set-up was nearly as fast as my roommate's black & white Macintosh. He was really surprised by the old C64. Anyway, I used GeoSpell a lot and it didn't crash with my JiffyDOS. Off hand, I don't think there was anything that didn't work with JiffyDOS. It may not have been 100% compatible with everything out there, but my experience was 100% and 100% with GEOS programs.
Great video again! Waiting for the next one!
To anyone who bought a CMD HD back in the day… why did you do that, versus upgrading to an Amiga, a PC, or something else that could make much better use of an HDD? I wanted a CMD HD way back when, but could never justify the cost when I could get a computer that was so much more capable with that kind of money instead.
Makes lions wonder what would have happened if they had a fully tricked out C64 in 1985 with RAM expander, 2 drives, full development tools, modem, unlimited phone tolls. Might have flunked out of school but been immensely better off by age 25.
It would be interesting to do similar video with original 128K Mac. The experience with setting up disks and swapping them often was not all that different…..
Thank you! As a kid I was to young to understand geos. Now, as I am getting back into Commodore stuff, I really benefit from your tutorial.
Are there big differences between geos 1 on C64 and Geos 128 (and 2.0) on C128s?
Have a nice day, llap! 🖖🏻
Back in the day, hard drives for C64s were extremely rare........in the UK most C64 users didn't even have a disk drive.
If commodore had put GEOS on a ROM and realised it as a business machine it would have been incredible
Sad state of affairs, you ponder what our modern computers would be like if they went down that path!
❤
When I saw the previous video on this topic, I imagined that the SDK would come into play at some point in the future.
Can you do a video on GEOS app development, both with GeoBASIC and the native machine code API? That has always been a big mystery to 10-year-old me.
Now - put the whole shabang on a EasyFlash-cartridge and give it to me ! ;O)
OK, now I’m curious whether you could fully cache a 1571 drive. If so, it would be a tough call between a fully cached 1571, or a directory cached 1581.
👍👍👍👍👍👍
I think im triggered by the sound of a 3.5 inch drive mechanism running when its accessing a "1541" :)
Does the emulator emulate both the Commodore REUs and the ones that were made that only work with GEOS? I don’t think I ever really understood the difference.
❤ this series btw, I had GEOS 128 with the 1571 up through 1991. I never was able to get things like Jiffy DOS back then so I suffered the slowest loads lol.
The GeoRAM expansions did not have a DMA chip, i.e. they didn't include the coprocessor that was in the Commodore REUs that could copy memory around on its own. The GeoRAM used paging instead, i.e. a special section of the internal RAM could be switched around to the different pages of the REU. This approache was much slower than the DMA because it required the CPU to copy the data into that special section to store them in the REU (but still much faster than storing the data on a disk drive).
my developer thoughts. you should have got a c128
This was a great walk though. I don't entirely see the point of pulling things to the desktop outside of their folder.
If its just a reference, and the fact that they are there are stored on the disk, then what exactly is the desktop?
The only reason that I found to put items on the side of the desktop was to copy them to other disks when you were using GEOS in a single disk system. The desktop in GEOS is really just a directory of what is on the current active disk. It's not really a desktop like we know it now.
I got GEOS with my 1541-II drive but the operating system never worked as it refused to load any of the programs because of the lack of RAM and I never even realized they sold RAM expansions for C64.
The ram expansions were only used as "RAM Disks". No software of the time needed anymore memory than what the C64 came with. You must have had some other issues loading them.
@@jeromekentz6616 That was error it gave each time "not enough memory" or some such.
If you have a 1MB or 2MB REU, will GEOS shadow a 1581?
does it all work if you enable vice warp mode?
Mostly. Weird things happen when typing though.
What MDT said -- if I need to do anything like that, I keep my fingers near Alt-W to switch from Warp to 200% speedup, as the later is good for typing.
Is GEOS only using 320x200 resolution? if so it's impressive how much it can fit on the screen
320x200 is the maximum resolution C64 is capable of, so yes, that is the one its using. GEOS UI is just very well designed.
U not using the real C64 but using C64 emulator to run GEOS emulator 😮
This is just so slow and clunky. A Unix terminal seems vastly easier/more efficient to use.