Intel GEM main page

• GEM links
• GEM information
• GEM software

Last updated: 7 January 2008

What is GEM?

A graphical environment for the IBM PC and the Atari ST. PC GEM was a fairly widely used GUI until the release of Windows 3.0.

GEM has had various owners over the years, but in approximate order:

• Digital Research
• Novell
• Caldera (later known as SCO)
• Caldera Thin Clients (later known as Lineo)
• It probably then ended up with Devicelogics rather than Metrowerks, but I've seen no confirmation of this.

A few years back, when Caldera Thin Clients were the owners, they released source for GEM/3 and ViewMAX/3 under the GPL - see the Links section.

Information

• A comparison between GEM and ViewMAX.
• Screenshots of the GEM desktops.
• Discussion of the different GEM versions.
• Patching the driver files for different mouse types.
• A brief description of the software interrupts used by GEM (you can also find it in the Interrupt List, version 60 or later).
• A list of all GEM VDI calls.
• A list of all GEM AES calls.
• Definitions of structures used by the AES.
• Some file formats.
• How to draw a form that looks like the ones in ViewMAX.
• Definitions of the colours used by GEM
• Why GEM/1 doesn't work in VGA mode

Software

• Some software is stored at this site.
• You can download some alternative system fonts.
• All the GEM drivers I could find.

Links

• GEM open-source developer site
• The Atari archives can occasionally come up with information relevant to PC GEM. In particular, I recommend Professional GEM, a series of articles on GEM development. They're aimed at Atari GEM, but PC GEM is similar enough that nearly all the information comes across.
• Shaneland OpenGEM is a distro of Intel GEM that's probably the best choice to install on modern PCs.
• Trident still supply GEM drivers for some of their video cards. Unfortunately they like to frobnicate their web site every week (or so it seems) and it's not worth my time to keep the link to them updated. So do a Google search for UC51-DOS.EXE and UL61-1.EXE.
• Google for GEMVP.ZIP for a GEM driver for Carrera cards.
• A mirror of the Gemworld site containing all sorts of GEM versions and programs, plus the otherwise-unavailable Artline and Artline II.
• Downloadable binaries of GEM applications (no source).
• David Given's DOS software archive has a few bits and pieces for GEM.
• Heinz Rath's pages contain a VESA 800x600 driver, the ViewMAX/3 desktop, and the start of a web browser for GEM.
• QuickMap is a program for the entry and manipulation of geographic data. It uses GEM drivers for display and printing; though it looks just like a normal GEM application, it has actually re-implemented most of GEM internally.

Lost Links

The following have vanished from the Web since this page was created. If anyone knows of a current page with them, let me know:

• ATI EGA Wonder drivers for GEM (ega802.exe or 800pd2.zip)
• Paradise 8514/A Plus drivers (8514drvr.exe) - formerly on Viglen's FTP site

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John Elliott 17-10-2005