GUI64 – GUI for the Commodore 64 running on top of the built-in ROM

23 pointsposted 2 days ago
by ethanpil
(c64-wiki.com)

8 Comments

snvzz

2 days ago

Too bad it's not open source.

("NC" creative commons)

Grimeton

2 days ago

One word: GEOS

selcuka

2 days ago

GEOS comes with its own ROM and bypasses the Commodore 64 "Kernal". This one is a GUI that runs on existing ROM.

jakedata

a day ago

I used GEOS unironically in high school. I had two 1541 floppy drives which really cut down on the disk swapping and I was able to do productive work. Ultimately I used my employee discount to upgrade to a Tandy 1000 TL that would boot into DeskMate from ROM and took it to college, leaving the C64 in the dust. I still have all the stuff but not the time.

ButlerianJihad

2 days ago

Limitations:

  GUI64 does not use the VIC-II’s bitmap graphics mode, but operates in text mode. GUI64 is therefore character set–based... Strictly speaking, GUI64 should therefore be considered not a GUI, but a TUI (Text User Interface).

  Currently, there are no applications for GUI64.
So, it is a file manager, inferior to an orthodox file manager. It supports the mouse, and it can launch BASIC. If you like your KERNAL ROM, you can keep your KERNAL ROM.

I never ran GEOS. I saw it advertised, and it seemed fascinating, but perhaps "too early". I had become fluent in BASIC and proficient at the command line. I could decipher the DOS commands and device IDs. For me, time spent on the Commodore 64 was programming, or in a game or application, rather than pushing files/objects around on the desktop.