Skip to content
◈ALB Atlas

Berkeley Softworks / GeoWorks Dead

Berkeley Softworks / GeoWorks
KindCompany
Founded1985
Defunct2003
StatusDead
FoundersBrian Dougherty
FieldSoftware
Sourceen.wikipedia.org ↗

Wrote GEOS — a full windowing OS on the Commodore 64 — then PC/GEOS, technically years ahead and commercially ignored. Its descendants surface in handhelds and hobby projects.

Created GEOS

Brian Dougherty founded Berkeley Softworks in 1985; GEOS for the C64 (1986) put a windowed GUI on a 1 MHz machine with 64K — arguably the most impressive microcomputer software ever written.

PC/GEOS (GeoWorks Ensemble, 1990) ran a full GUI in 640K where Windows needed 4MB; it was critically lauded, commercially crushed. The code became Breadbox Ensemble, then NewDeal, then FreeGEOS — still maintained by hobbyists. Dougherty's team later built Danger's Hiptop (the Sidekick).

Sources

  1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(16-bit_operating_system)