DmMacniel 15 points 8 months ago

Maybe GeOS/Geoworks?

https://winworldpc.com/product/geos/geoworks-1x

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SharkWeek 2 points 8 months ago

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DmMacniel 1 point 8 months ago

was it though? I guess it depend on having a mouse, a second floppy drive and a printer. You could thus use it as a desktop publishing platform, or spreadsheet calculator.

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SharkWeek 1 point 8 months ago

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aeronmelon 13 points 8 months ago

I remember OS/2 by IBM which looked like Windows 3.11, and OS/2 Warp which looked like Windows 95. There were probably others.

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bufalo1973 11 points 8 months ago

ViewMAX or GEM. Both from Digital Research.

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unwillingsomnambulist 6 points 8 months ago

DOS Shell was something like that. Not much in the way of functionality, but it was graphical…ish.

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mech 4 points 8 months ago

It looked like this:

It was pretty similar to modern Windows but without taskbar or Start menu.
Instead, you had a main window called "program manager" with icons in it to start other programs.
Do you have any specific questions about it?

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evenwicht 5 points 8 months ago

What is that? I don’t think that’s what I had in mind. I think it’s DESQview I was trying to think of. Anyway, not important.. it was just driving me nuts I could not remember.

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mech 5 points 8 months ago

Sorry, I think I misunderstood your question.
And I had literally never heard of any Windows 3 alternatives up to now.

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evenwicht 4 points 8 months ago

To be fair, I was quite vague. I think there are multiple right answers.. but I recalled one starting w/a 'D' and that’s what I was trying to recall.

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anothermember 2 points 8 months ago

I thought your question was clear for what it's worth. If it was Windows 3.0 era you're probably looking for ViewMAX (from the same company as DR-DOS, which was an MS-DOS compatible operating system, maybe that's where the 'D' comes from?). I vaguely remember reading (or maybe watching) a good feature about it online a while ago but I can't find it unfortunately.

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one_old_coder 2 points 8 months ago

Is there a specific screenshot you're thinking of?

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evenwicht 1 point 8 months ago

No, I figured if I could recall the name I could get a nostalgic fix by searching it. I found this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview

I recall DESQview was much lighter weight and better performing than Windows, but had limitations. I did not recall that the windows were text only within, but that’s starting to fill some holes in my memory.

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andyburke 2 points 8 months ago

You may be thinking of DesqViewX:

https://lunduke.substack.com/...

Edit for a little personal anecdote: ran a 2-line (2400, then later 14.4k) WWIV BBS under this on a 386sx in the 90s. What an awesome time that was.

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sundray 2 points 8 months ago

A great resource when looking for older GUI shells/OS's is Toastytech: http://toastytech.com/guis/index.html

Lots of info and screenshots to browse through there. And if you don't find what you're looking for you might find something else that's interesting :)

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teft 2 points 8 months ago

DOS Shell?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_Shell

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SubArcticTundra 1 point 8 months ago

You might be talking about the DOS Shell. A pseudo graphical file managerm shipped with DOS.

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originalucifer -3 points 8 months ago