Exist any Intel x86 port of Atari TOS?

[MIRKOSOFT]

Hi!

I want to ask few retrocomputing Os:
Like exist Mac OSX86 project, exist any Intel x86 port of Atari TOS?
Also - like GEOS for C64/128 and Apple II has PC version of GEOS - exist any similar GEM version?

Thank you for all answers.
Miro

[matej]

There is OpenGEM for FreeDOS:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGEM

There is FreeGEM:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeGEM

Current GEM owner:
http://www.deltasoft.com

There was FLEXOS with X/GEM:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexOS

There is CP/M x86:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M-86

But ATARI version of TOS+GEM I am not sure.But maybe was plans for their ATARI PC line...

[joska]

No, Atari TOS has never been ported to x86.

[mzry]

That was quite interesting reading. It seems that if digital research had won the lawsuit vs apple we may have been using Gem instead of Windows today. It's a shame since the concept and understanding of GUIs were so new back then, basic things like drop down menus could be patented, which today is utterly absurd. Although if digital research were a bit more creative they could have developed a bottom task bar and an in-window menu system to combat the apple lawsuit rather than destroying their product.

[penguin]

That was quite interesting reading. It seems that if digital research had won the lawsuit vs apple we may have been using Gem instead of Windows today. It's a shame since the concept and understanding of GUIs were so new back then, basic things like drop down menus could be patented, which today is utterly absurd. Although if digital research were a bit more creative they could have developed a bottom task bar and an in-window menu system to combat the apple lawsuit rather than destroying their product.

GEM still had overlapping windows and a menu bar even after DR caved in to Apple's demands - and some PCs used that "crippled" version of GEM before eventually switching to Windows later. DR was never successful in getting enough support for the GUI and Microsoft were in a much better position: Most PCs were shipped with MS-DOS, Microsoft had development tools and their own applications. DR lost when they couldn't make a deal with IBM to supply the operating system for the new PC...

[tzok]

TOS was unique to Atari, but its user interface, GEM, did exist in a PC version (actually Atari have ported it from PC). TOS is a mix of CP/M and DOS. Initially Atari wanted to use GEM on CP/M 68k.

[wongck]

DR lost when they couldn't make a deal with IBM to supply the operating system for the new PC...

Lots of stories why it did not work out for DR.... but I think he should have just agreed to IBM conditions as IBM was one of the biggest IT firm then.

[nativ]

I suppose MagiC! was a sort of port of the platform .. available on PC and Mac

there was GEMulator as well, which had an Atari ROM board on a PCI card for PC

There's also emuTOS which is used on the firebee and other Atari compatible platforms / emulators

[penguin]

I suppose MagiC! was a sort of port of the platform .. available on PC and Mac

there was GEMulator as well, which had an Atari ROM board on a PCI card for PC

Not really.
GEMulator: Emulator, with TOS-ROM board for legal reasons.
MagiC PC: Emulator, with MagiC built-in.
MagiCMac 68k: Like Aladin or Spectre, but the other way around (no full HW emulation required)
MagiCMac PPC: Uses the Mac OS's 68k emulation

Any port of TOS or MagiC requires a 68k emulation to run Atari apps unless used on a 68k platform. Otherwise you'd have to recompile apps for the different CPU architecture (which has been done for a few apps that run on Firebee natively).

[1st1]

TOS was unique to Atari, but its user interface, GEM, did exist in a PC version (actually Atari have ported it from PC). TOS is a mix of CP/M and DOS. Initially Atari wanted to use GEM on CP/M 68k.

Wrong... Right... Not really. Just compare numbers of function calls in GEMDOS, BIOS, XBIOS with MS-DOS function calls via INT. Compare the parameters they both use for same function call number and function to each other. Compare filesystem between TOS and DOS... Allmost identically. Biggest difference is Big/Little Endian for dunction calls on 16 Bit words...

Shocking, isn't it?

There even is COMMAND.PRG which can be placed in AUTO folder, and it auto executes AUTOEXEC.BAT file when it finds one in same folder or root, understanding basically the same commans/syntax like MS-DOS 2.x internal ones...

That is, because GEM originally was developed for MS-DOS. So DRI and Atari designed BIOS, XBIOS and GEMDOS very compatible to a MS-DOS system ) with installed mouse driver). So DRI/Atari had not to rewrite too much of GEM to port it to ST.

You also can compare the way METADOS BOS and DOS drivers are installed and communicate to each other with MSCEDEX... Interesting, isn't it?

And shockingly, MS-DOS system funcrion calls are basically the same as on CP/M. That made easy to port CP/M applications to MS-DOS very quick. Big difference between CP/M and MS-DOS is file system, up to CP/M 2.2 it can not support folders and not more than 64 files per (root) directory. That was second reason why GEMDOS is more MS-DOS alike, than CP/M.

[1st1]

That was quite interesting reading. It seems that if digital research had won the lawsuit vs apple we may have been using Gem instead of Windows today.

There was no lawsuit between Apple and Atari. Steve Jobs started his career as ATARI engineer, and he was too afraid to try to battle with Jack Tramiel. DRI lost against Apple, so they had to cut down desktop functionality of PC version of GEM.

But GEM only was 2nd choice for ATARI. They only took it as it was faster to port to ST. It was faster than... can you hear the drums...? Before ATARI agreed to use GEM, they had meeting in Redmond. Unfortunatelly, or luckily (?) Bill G. told them, that porting Windows would take two years. Tooooo slow to compete with Commodore Amiga... GEM was mostly working after 6 monthes.

Woud we love our Ataris the same way if they were running Windows-68K? Would that have been a game changer in PC industry? Would we today still use ATARI-Windows machines with 48-core-6Ghz 68K-series processors?

Some sources:
- http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=995 and www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1000 - not mentioning Microsoft directly, but "August: The ST hardware becomes clearer. We evaluate other OSes, etc." in part 2
- https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall "GEM war früher als Microsoft Windows verfügbar und hatte wesentlich geringere Hardwareanforderungen."

(Source where this directly was told, that Jack met Bill will be presented later as soon as I find it...)

[Cyprian]

GEMulator: Emulator, with TOS-ROM board for legal reasons.

Actually GEMulator works fine without any additional hardware, just use TOS image file.

Back to the topic, would be cool to have native x86 port.
There were a similar to Wine project called OSIS by NoCrew. It was an attempt to port native TOS calls to Linux. OSIS parts were called oTOSis, oVDIsis, oAESis and oFBis.
More about it:
http://xaaes.gokmase.com/history.php?xaaes=freemint

Some soure code:
https://github.com/ocgis

[1st1]

You can download the direct GEM port for MS-DOS from the Free-GEM websites. But it will not be able to execute 68K GEM software.

PC basded GEM was also used to backport open source EmuTOS back to ST. That's because DRI has put PC version of GEM to open source status before it's doors vorever...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeGEM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGEM

[1st1]

One more source about Windows on ST

http://www.atari-computermuseum.de/520st.htm "Auch die Frage nach dem Betriebssystem und der grafischen Benutzeroberfläche war anfangs noch alles andere als geklärt. Neben dem Graphics Environment Manager (GEM) der Firma Digital Research wurde auch die erste Version von Microsoft Windows in Betracht gezogen. Nachdem die Atari-Entwickler allerdings feststellten, dass das System noch mehr als unausgereift war, fiel die Wahl schließlich auf GEM."

[1st1]

Found it... https://www.atarimagazines.com/startv3n ... sofst.html

"Soon after the takeover, Microsoft began to court the new Atari in an effort to sell Windows as the ST's operating system, and Leonard had several meetings with them. But Microsoft's Windows was still almost two years away, and Digital's GEM was much further along. The new Atari decided to go with Digital Research."

"GEMDOS, while not written as an MS-DOS clone, nonetheless was modeled on MS-DOS. There is nearly a one-to-one correspondence between GEMDOS operating system calls and those of MS-DOS, and the mechanism for storing files on disk is identical--which is why ST disk drives can read IBM disks."

[Cyprian]

DR's GEMDOS was based on MS-DOS and MS-DOS was based on DR's CP/M