History of the Gem Desktop Environment
16 hours ago
- #GEM
- #Digital Research
- #Atari ST
- The author's first experience with a graphical desktop environment was on an Atari 520 ST, which was a significant upgrade from the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K.
- The Atari ST's graphical desktop environment, GEM, was developed by Digital Research Inc. (DRI) and was inspired by earlier systems like the Xerox Star.
- Lee Jay Lorenzen, a key developer of GEM, initially worked on a prototype called 'Crystal' before renaming it to GEM (Graphic Environment Manager).
- GEM was officially introduced at COMDEX in November 1984 and faced criticism for initially running only on IBM machines and being sluggish on 8088-based systems.
- Atari ST's operating system, TOS, was based on GEM and GEMDOS, developed under tight deadlines and became a hit upon its release in 1985.
- Apple threatened legal action against DRI, claiming GEM copied the Macintosh's 'look and feel,' leading to the release of a modified GEM 2.0 in 1986.
- GEM saw some success in Europe, particularly on the Amstrad PC 1512, but ultimately faded from prominence by the late 1980s.
- The last commercial release of GEM was version 3.11 in 1988, and the project was later open-sourced by Caldera in the 1990s.
- GEM's legacy lives on in computing history, with open-source versions like FreeGEM and OpenGEM available but no longer actively developed.