Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Sun, 24 Jun 2001 18:41:30 -0400 (EDT) | From | Chris Meadors <> | Subject | Re: Microsoft and Xenix. |
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On Sun, 24 Jun 2001, Rob Landley wrote:
> I know the geos had nothing to do with digital, it started as a windowing GUI > for the commodore 64, if you can believe that...
Not only can I belive it, but I was going to bring it up the first time GEOS was mentioned. Having only used Macs (in school) for file operations (I had loaded games off a TSR-80 datasette). I couldn't follow copying/deleting/renaming files by typing commands when my family finally got me a C64. So I relied heavily on GEOS. I even got one of those touch pads to move the cursor around the screen.
When my dad finally got a PC in 1991 it had MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 on it. I didn't like Windows too much, but still found DOS awkward (still using Macs in school). I started using dosshell a lot for file operations. But when I saw an ad for GEOS in a computer mag. I was so happy. I ended up using that for a while. But more and more programs required Windows, and that made me mad.
There was one book that totally changed my life. I can't remember the correct title, but it was something to the effect of Secrets to the DOS Gurus. After reading that book, I fell in love with the command line interface. Everything started making sense.
Somewhere along the line, I think 1994 I started working for the Maryland state government at a Healt Department. They were running Xenix (SCO, the 2 names were interchanged a lot) on a 386. A few of the "important" people had serial lines run to their Win 3.1 PCs where they'd use Telix to run the database programs on the Xenix box.
As I watched people work on in Xenix I recognized a lot of the commands I had picked up using the Delphi online service. I had a neighbor that showed me some stuff I could do if I chose the Exit to Shell option.
In 1995 still working for the Health Department I got to go to my first trade show, FOSE. I met and heavily impressed a lot of booth workers. One such booth was Microsoft. I was invited to participate in their beta program for the upcoming Windows 95 (I was one of the "lucky" people who didn't have to pay for their betas).
I used the Win95 betas for a while. But something happened that year. I got a Linux Unleashed book from SAMS. It included a copy of Slackware. I installed that along side my Win95, and when I saw how fast Doom loaded I was in love. I vowed that on August 24, 1995 I would delete Windows from my machine and never use it again. Well I can't say that I have held complete faithful to that vow, but I have had Linux on my machine ever since then. Now my computer is Windows free and has been for a year and a half.
Okay, I brushed on GEOS, Microsoft, Xenix, and even Linux. So I'm as on topic as the rest of this thread. I just have never told my story on l-k, and this seemed a good place to put a little of it in. :)
-Chris -- Two penguins were walking on an iceberg. The first penguin said to the second, "you look like you are wearing a tuxedo." The second penguin said, "I might be..." --David Lynch, Twin Peaks
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