Screen Shot Gallery -- GEM®

Desktop Publishing     Desktop publishing software was very popular from the mid-1980's to the mid-1990's. A combination of word processing and graphics tools, DTP software is used primarily for creating newsletters, fliers, brochures, large publications, etc.     Desktop publishing programs distinguished themselves from most other software of the time with horizontal and vertical ruler bars. As this feature became popular, other software companies began adding it to their programs.     GEM Desktop's graphical user interface provided an ideal "platform" for making easy to use, mouse-driven, graphical desktop publishing programs. GEM Desktop was even used as the graphical interface for DOS-based programs made to run on computers that didn't have GEM installed.

GEM Desktop Publisher 2.01 Copyright © 1988 Digital Research Inc. GEM Desktop Publisher can create multi-column documents complete with graphics, charts, etc. It features drawing tools, body text, title, and heading formattting, import filters for Microsoft Word 4.0, WordPerfect 4.2, WordStar Professional, MultiMate Advantage II, RTF-DCA, ASCII text, GEM 1st Word Plus 2.0, and GEM Write 1.0, cut/copy/paste, style sheets, page numbering, paragraph, character, line attributes, a graphical "toolkit" that changes with the type of tools you select, full page, 2-page, zoom, or normal WYSIWYG page viewing, horizontal and vertical document rulers, file limits of 100 pages, 64 merged files, 256 rectangles, 500 graphics images, auto grid, and more. This version was released on three 360K floppies. Total install size: 744K

GEM Desktop     In 1985, before Microsoft released their "Windows" graphical user interface, Digital Research Inc. released a graphical environment for personal computers and called it "GEM Desktop."     GEM Desktop is a mouse-driven, icon-based, windowed GUI with drag-and-drop, color and sound (PC speaker) support. GEM Desktop also supports scalable fonts, PCX, TIF, its own proprietary GEM format, and others.     Digital Research and other software companies wrote several application programs for GEM Desktop, including word processors, graphics programs, presentation programs, desktop publishing programs, and others.

GEM Desktop 1.1 Copyright © 1985 Digital Research Inc. A very rare find these days, this is one of the first versions of the graphical GEM Desktop. It is a mouse- driven, icon and window-based environment that allows drag-and-drop file functions between multiple "windows," a pull-down menu interface, point-and-click buttons and fields, a calculator, clock that displays the system date and time, and more. GEM Desktop 1.1 only supports two disk drives. The desktop will create icons for drive A: and drive C: (if present). The icon for floppy drives is a 5¼" disk. The icon for a hard drive is a full-height drive. GEM Desktop 1.1 also has a "trash" can to drag files to for deleting, similar to a Macintosh's trash can. This version was released on four 360K floppies.   Total install size: 386K

GEM®/3 Desktop™ 3.13 Copyright © 1989 Digital Research Inc. Like earlier 2.x versions, this release of GEM Desktop also opens two windows to allow drag-and-drop folder/file copying. The desktop menu allows folders and files to be sorted by name, type, size, or date. DESKTOP label is a menu to access the calculator, clock, print spooler, and any other programs added by other programs. The Options menu lets you to set the mouse double-click speed, confirm copies and deletes, turn sound effects on or off, use 12 or 24 hour clock display, and use European or U.S. date format. It also uses DOS's mode, format, command.com, and hardware vendors' mouse driver (if necessary) and supports 16-color VGA. It recognizes both serial and bus mice and comes with sample fonts and graphics. This version was released on five 360K and two 1.2MB floppies. Total install size: 405K

Graphics Software     Computers are wonderous machines. They can process data at mind-numbing speeds. Computers translate data as binary 0's and 1's and arrange those digits in combinations to represent letters and numeric values, words and calculations. This is all very good and efficient but it isn't very fun is it?     In the early 1980's, "draw," "paint" and other graphics programs were created to let anyone with a PC and one of these programs create true graphics pictures to use for anything their imaginations could conceive. This added a little humanity to the emotionless, number-crunching machines.     Graphics changed computing forever. There are serious graphics-based programs like presentation and CAD programs, but graphics finally allowed computers to do the one thing that previously was impossible with just words and numbers -- play graphics-based games.     Yes, now that US$7,000.00 PC/XT the company bought in 1985 could process data from King's Quest at the same blinding speeds it could crunch corporate spreadsheet data in Lotus 1-2-3.

GEM Draw Plus 2.0 Copyright © 1986 Digital Research Inc. A "draw" graphics program for GEM Desktop, GEM Draw Plus 2.0 offers 43 graphics files in 7 categories (building, business, charts, education, maps, transportation, utility), 2 fonts (Swiss and Dutch) with multiple pitches and styles, 11 line styles, 39 shade patterns, 16 colors, text and object alignment, grouping, rotation, horizontal and vertical flip, auto grid on/off, desktop publisher-like rulers, page sizing, portrait and landscape orientation, drawing tools, page and area magnification, text insert, and more. This version was released on two 360K floppies. Total install size: 428K

GEM Paint 2.01 Copyright © 1988 Digital Research Inc. This GEM Desktop "paint" program lets you create detailed, color pictures and offers an array of drawing tools. It features an editable color pattern table, fill tools, multiple "brush" shapes, selection flip horizontal/vertical, clear, and compliment, free drawing, line draw, and spray paint tools, zoom, picture sizing, grid on/off, undo, transparency, 3 sizable fonts (System, Swiss, and Dutch), font formatting (bold, italic, underline, normal), and text justification. This version was released on one 360K floppy. Total install size: 348K

GEM Artline 1.01 Copyright © 1989 Digital Research Inc. Artline is a GEM Desktop graphics program for making graphics images in GEM format. Graphics can contain pictures, symbols, lines, rectangles, circles, and text. Features include PostScript output, page size, snap-to grid size, orientation, options, hide/show grid, horizontal/vertical rulers, background watermark image, view zoom, object group/ungroup/join/cut, object copy/move/scale/flip/rotate, make backup file, font leading, spacing, kerning, 10 symbols files, each with multiple images, 9 multi-pitch fonts, graphical toolbars, and more. This version was released on three 360K floppies. Total install size: 823K

Presentation Software     In the mid-1980's GEM Desktop presentation software was developed to present information in graphics format and with a colorful impact.     GEM Desktop presentation software combines features of graphics "draw" programs and desktop publishing software to create presentations in ways many text-based DOS presentation programs of the time could not.

GEM WordChart 1.0 Copyright © 1986 Digital Research Inc. This program lets you create charts, tables, and outlines with up to 5 columns for presentations and other events. It features a gallery of 9 templates (3 outline, 5 columnar, 1 freestyle), 19 border styles, 2 scalable fonts, 5 sample charts, drawing tools for lines and boxes, outline lettering and bullets, 8-color pallete, portrait/ landscape formats, zone markers, and shortcut keystrokes. This version was released on one 360K floppy. Total install size: 225K

GEM Graph 1.01 Copyright © 1988 Digital Research Inc. Create charts and graphs for presentations with this GEM Desktop graphing program. It features a spreadsheet-like entry window to enter graph data with fields for main title, subtitle, Y-axis title, and X-axis columm titles, a gallery of 8 graph types: pie, line, area, bar, line/bar, 3D bar, symbol, and map, automatic or manual scale range, axis and grid settings, a graph viewing window with text, color, and pattern drawing tools, import Lotus 1-2-3 WK?, DIF, CSV, and PRN data, graph magnify, clear and flip data options, cut/copy/paste/delete, page layout options, symbol library with 12 items, 2 scalable fonts, and 5 sample graphs. GEM Graph 1.01 also includes GEM Map Editor 1.01, featured below. This version was released on one 360K floppy. Total install size: 412K

GEM Map Editor 1.01 Copyright © 1988 Digital Research Inc. Released with GEM Graph 1.01, Map Editor can create custom maps with regions, city and capitol symbols, and custom color and shaded areas. Features include make region, break region, delete, undelete, normal, bold, italic, underlined, boxed text with 10, 14, 20, 28, 36, and 72 pitch, Swiss and Dutch fonts, 8 colors, 18 shade patterns, 9 city and miscelaneous symbols, hide text, magnify and more. This version was included with GEM Graph 1.01.

Programming     It is one thing to run someone else's software. But there is nothing quite like the satisfaction of seeing a computer run a program you have coded yourself by combining the proper combination of syntax and logic.     Programming "interpreter" programs can allow a programmer to write, edit, save, and execute source code. But programming interpreters do not include a compiler to compile the source code into standalone executable programs.     Programming languages generally include a compiler to compile source code into standalone executable programs.     The operating system that runs your computer's software is nothing more than a complex program compiled from source code.

GEM Programmer's Toolkit Copyright © 1988 Digital Research Inc. The GEM Programmer's Toolkit is a programming environment to create, test, and run GEM-based programs. The GEM Resource Construction Set 2.3 is an integrated graphical environment where the program's menus, dialogs, panels, and alert messages are created. The source code for these items can then be saved as "output files" as the toolkit's RHS source file, C, BASIC, FORTRAN-77, Pascal and order binding file. Also included is GEMSID 1.1, a 1985 GEM version of SID-86, an assembler debugger with trace, special GEM SID commands, and more. Documentation, sample APP programs, and source code are provided with the GEM Programmer's Toolkit. This is a development environment to generate source code to be compiled with other programming languages. It does not have its own native compiler. This version was released on three 360K floppies.   Total install size: 728K

Word Processor     In the mid-1980's, with the exception of Macintosh software, the GEM Desktop "platform" allowed some of the earliest graphical word processor software programs to be created.     Some mid-1980's GEM Desktop-based word processor software have features some DOS text-based word processors of the same day lacked -- mouse support, pull-down menus, graphics insert, multi-window environment, etc.     Had Digital Research marketed GEM Desktop as aggressively as Microsoft did MS-DOS and Windows, more software vendors might have written GEM versions of their wares. There could have been a WordPerfect for GEM, WordStar for GEM, etc.

GEM Write 1.0 Copyright © 1985 Lifetree Software, Inc. For its size, GEM Write is packed with features found in word processors ten times its size or larger. With graphics insert capability, move, copy, delete, line insert/ center/delete, go to, find, replace, find & replace next, normal/bold/italic/underline text, auto-reformat, graphical ruler & tab bar with custom tab setting, pagination, justification, 1/2/3-line spacing, hot-key shortcuts, and document backup, GEM Write 1.0 can help you do away with that outdated writing machine known as the "typewriter." This version was released on one 360K floppy. Total install size: 142K

GEM 1st Word Plus 2.00 Copyright © 1987 GST Holdings Ltd. This GEM Desktop word processor has features others on different "platforms" would not have until several years later. It features find, replace, document statistics, WP mode, insert mode, hyphenation, word wrap, set marker, go to marker, go to page, block start/end/cut/copy/paste/move, copy to scrap, add to scrap, paste scrap, find start/end, unmark, show position, show ruler, page layout, add/delete/ read ruler, footnote format, add footnote, save defaults, bold/underline/superscript/ italic/subscript styles, center/right/indent/reformat, spell checking, add word to dictionary, graphics mode, on-line help, and more. This version was released on two 360K floppies. Total install size: 1.06MB

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Updated last on 01/01/2009.
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